Soun and Genma's… Operation Conquer the World!
by Shark8
Summary: Shark8 and EternallyLost's difinitive vision of the Ranma ½ universe. Featuring Quantum Logic, Martial Arts mayhem, explosions, penguins and exploding penguins! Now in technicolor and spellchecked!
1. The Intro!

Soun and Genma's... operation CONQUER THE WORLD!

* * *

Author's Intro: This work of fiction is proof that people with unique (e.g. weird) senses of humor should _not_ under any circumstances be allowed to instant message each other. The premises for this came through several chats with EternallyLost. Neither of us own Ranma ½, however we do own the warped minds that produced this. Nobody else would probably want to claim to have had a hand in this. You have been warned!

* * *

Soun threw back his long hair and quietly observed his babies sleeping peacefully, it always brought a tear to his eye when he saw them resting like this… the one tear led to another and another until it looked like there was some serious plumbing problem where the mustached man stood. 

"Father?" a sweet and gentle feminine voice interrupted Soun's emotionally charged moment.

"Yes Kasumi," Soun said pulling himself back together. "What is it?"

"The mail came and there's a strange postcard for you… It's from a Genma Saotome." Kasumi said as she glided over to her father and handed him the day's mail.

Soun looked through the sizable stack of mail that Kasumi had handed him. Bills, bills, a val-u-pak, flyers for a furniture store, a letter from the Fraternal Order of Police, a thank-you letter from the local WMCY where he taught Tae Kwon Do for free (well, as long as you didn't count the tax write-off), and finally this month's Reader's Digest. Bewildered, Soun looked through the stack again and a third time when he failed to find the postcard.

"Uh, Kasumi… I thought you said there was something from Genma." Soun said as he placed the mail on the short table.

"I did, it was there father… maybe I dropped it." Kasumi said as her eyes darted around the floor back the way she'd come. She had no more luck finding the postcard than her father had a moment ago. "I'm sorry father, I could have sworn I had it…" Kasumi said, in the mildly annoyed tone of voice that she usually reserved for particularly tough stains, as she flipped her long dark-blonde/honey-brown hair back over her shoulder.

"I know, don't worry Kasumi, it'll show up eventually." Soun said as he clamped his hands behind his back in a very Neon Genesis Evangelion style.

At that moment Nabiki, the middle sister cams strolling in, almost bouncing along. "Daddy," she began in her I-want-something voice, "who're Ranma and Genma?" She was holding the postcard between her first two fingers, offering it in a way that seemed to say 'you'll tell me if you get this, right?'

"Nabiki! You're not supposed to read things that aren't for you?" Kasumi chided her younger sister, things had been so hard on father since their mother had died that she had naturally filled the role that had opened during her mother's passing, not that she'd ever wanted to _replace_ their mother, it was just that they needed someone to look up to and Kasumi had stepped up and filled that role.

"No Kasumi, actually she has every right to ask who they are, as do you and Akane." Soun said as he took the card then stepped out the back for a second to call his youngest daughter inside before he turned back around and went inside to wait for her.

It was just a few minutes later that a certain someone came waddling in through the door. Some people have would have remarked that she was remarkably well dressed, even if it was a tuxedo, but most people would stare at the four foot tall penguin who was waddling in through the door.

"Akane!! What happened!?" Soun wailed as he saw the penguin, crying that it wasn't fair that she should be so… uncute.

Kasumi sighed, "Father, that's PenPen…"

Soun quickly regained his composure except for the right hand behind his head and the slightly embarrassed laugh. That was when Akane stepped in through the back door, still breathing hard from her workout… she looked at her father's embarrassed stance and then at the penguin then back to her father.

"Dad! You didn't confuse PenPen for me again did you?" Akane said as she shook her head.

Soun just laughed again.

"Honestly!" Akane sighed, her father was always doing that, confusing the two of them, she thought it might be because his sight was going but he insisted is was the similarities in personality... and that they were 'born' on the same day.

Now that all three of his daughters were there Soun could begin to explain about Genma and his son Ranma. Genma was an old friend of Soun's and when Ranma was born they'd made a promise to marry their children. One of his three lovely daughters would marry Ranma. 'Well, four lovely daughters if you count PenPen… but I don't think that'll fly with either Genma or Ranma.'

"So, is he cute?" Nabiki asked, obviously thinking of how they might look as a couple. She simply detested ugly guys… ugly guys that had no money that is.

"I don't know." Soun replied. "The last time I saw him he looked like a raisin or maybe a prune."

In all honesty it was amazing that his daughters didn't simply tell him to forget it. They had thought that he'd engaged them to some horribly deformed monster until he explained that he'd actually been referring to the few days after Ranma had come home from the hospital, that seemed to mollify their fear of being married to a hideous monster, but it didn't earn him any points on the caring-and-sympathetic scale. After several more questions, at which Soun was about as helpful in answering as the first, the family split up each member going to do what they normally did. The postcard had said that they would be making a few stops before they came and would probably arrive in a few days.

Akane went to shower after her workout, Nabiki went upstairs to work on her web-page, Kasumi went shopping for diner while Soun gazed out at his precious penguin nursery.

'Soon, very soon my babies.' Soun thought as he looked around the big machine room that was his penguin hatchery, yes _they_ were his babies.

- - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, in Ohio, a young boy was arguing with an older man in a white Gi.

"No way pops! That was the stupidest thing I've ever seen!" He complained. "There's no way that a wetback like that spik is in the ruski maffia!" The boy said using as many racial slurs as he could, political correctness was never Ranma's strong point.

Ranma was interrupted by a gunshot followed by curses in what might have been Spanish with a Russian accent… or maybe Russian with a Spanish accent as the man they'd just finished talking to minutes before thrashed on the ground.

Ranma's jaw dropped… "How did you… I mean it's so… How could you know?"

Genma smiled and pushed the old-style thick, blocky, and black glasses up on his nose. "Quantum Logic, my boy, Quantum Logic."

"What!?" Ranma was shocked, what was his old man babbling about now? I mean hadn't the ten-year martial arts training trip they'd gone on been enough?

"Quantum Logic, and you, my boy, are heir to the Saotome School of Quantum Logic!!" Genma practically shouted.

"The _what_!?" Ranma was stunned, for the past ten years it had been nothing but Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts this, Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts that… and now his pop was saying something about a Saotome School of _Quantum Logic_!?

"I thought you were teaching me martial arts." Ranma said, goading his father as much as he could.

"Foolish boy!! The martial arts was the _easy_ part, your true destiny lies within Quantum Logic" Genma nearly exploded.

"Then why'd ya bother teachin' me martial arts at all?" Ranma asked, confused but not really ready to listen to his father.

"To teach you the discipline to master Quantum Logic, the road of a true Quantum Logistician is fraught with peril." Genma said adapting his favorite martial arts saying.

To say Ranma was caught off balance by this sudden shift in his father would have been an understatement, this was like coming home and finding that your best friend had been a girl. Ranma laughed at that, like Uuchan could be a _girl_! But it was nonetheless disturbing.


	2. The Curse!

Chapter two of Soun and Genma's… Operation Conquer the World!

* * *

"Pops! This stuff is just… stupid!" yelled a young man with long black hair tied back in a pigtail. Ranma Saotome was frustrated, Martial Arts he could grasp, and easily at that, but this _Quantum Logic_…

"Come on boy! You can do it, I know you can!" Genma said encouraging his son with sweeping, grandiose gestures. "All you need to do is apply yourself to it like the Art, that's what the Art was anyway, just a stepping-stone to this!"

Ranma snorted, "Yeah right pops."

Like there could be anything higher than Martial Arts! Heck, their family name was in one of the traditions: The Saotome School of Anything Martial Arts. 'I'd always thought that mastering the Art and taking over the Saotome School was my destiny, but now pops is going on about this Quantum Logic. It's just all too confusing… I'd rather just do something straightforward like the Art.' Ranma thought to himself, stewing in his discontentment.

"All right boy! If you want to be like this we'll train like this was part of the Art." Genma said at last. "In fact, we'll even stop a few places on our way to the Tendo dojo!"

"Tendo dojo?" Ranma asked, he'd never heard of the place but something struck a chord within him, as if he were being called by destiny to go there.

"Yes, the Tendo dojo. Soun Tendo and I are old friends and he really wants to meet you." Genma smiled a sly smile that Ranma completely missed. "In fact I'll bet he already considers you family."

- - - - - - - - - -

It was a hot and somewhat humid day, ninety-nine degrees and ninety-nine percent humidity, at the Tendo training hall… in other words it felt like Hell when the knock on the door came.

Kasumi's yell of surprise caused the rest of the family to immediately come running. There bursting through the door was a giant panda carrying a body slumped over it's shoulder.

"Daddy, is that your friend?" Nabiki asked dryly.

Soun shook his head violently in the negative, he had no idea what a panda would be doing here carrying a body. Maybe it was a crazy animal that had escaped from the zoo and was on a rage induced spree of terror against the people that had imprisoned him for so long! Soun burst into tears, he was too young to die.

"Gwrof!!" the panda said, causing Soun to faint and his three daughters jump back in fright… until a sign appeared in his paw… then they just stared in shock and wonder before passing out like their father.

Genma sighed as he removed the cheesy panda mask. Yes, his friend was much the same, he thought shrugging, laying the unconscious form of his son… _daughter?_ ah, whatever down next to the unconscious Tendos.

- - - - - - - - - -

Genma and Ranma were trudging along the mountainous Chinese landscape when they finally found a valley. The legendary training ground of Jusenkyo lay before them, bamboo poles sticking out of calm pools of water all bathed in a light mist. The guide was about to say something when Genma silenced him.

"Here we are boy!!" Genma said as he took off his pack and set it on the ground behind him and sat down in a nice grassy clearing just a couple of paces from one of the ponds as he began to unpack several books from the pack he'd just been carrying.

Ranma meanwhile, had jumped onto one of the bamboo poles shooting out of one of the pools. "Hey pops, are we going to do some training or not?" he shouted down at his father.

"Foolish boy! We're not here for martial arts training, we're here for Quantum Logic training!" Genma snapped at his son, all that time hiking here and the boy hadn't listened to a single word he'd said. Well, if he wasn't going to learn Quantum Logic then he wasn't going to train in martial arts either… at least not until he'd at least made an effort to learn the True Art.

Ranma hopped off the pole don to the ground right in front of Genma. "Oh, come _on_ pops! That stuffs just a bunch of hooey! Let's just do some good old martial arts training."

Genma looked up at the boy and sighed, if he'd only put half that energy into Quantum Logic he'd have already learned the basics and been well on to mastering it. "No, boy, we're going to do some more Quantum Logic."

"Dad! Besides not makin sense that stuff's boring! Just like my life!" Ranma yelled excitedly, his head popped up as he exclaimed, "I wish my life was more interestin!"

Genma just calmly stood up and pushed Ranma, not a hard push, just a small push to make him step back and onto the surface of one of the glassy clear pools. He was quite tired of the boy complaining about his boring life…

"Wha-aaaa!" Ranma cried as he windmilled his arms in a futile ttempt not to fall. fell backward into one of the pools.

The Chinese guide ran up in excitement and suddenly spoke in broken English "Oh, too bad! Mr. Customer fall into Nyannichuan, ancient Spring of Drowned Girl, where, one thousand five hundred year, ago girl fall in spring and drown. Now whoever fall in pool take body of young girl."

"What'd you do that for pops!?" Ranma shrieked in her new voice.

"It's the First rule of Quantum Logic, my boy, don't say something without meaning it!" Genma replied laughing as he snagged his pack and ran from his enraged offspring.

- - - - - - - - - -

Soun sipped his cup of tea as he listened intently to his friend's story. He was still a little upset that he'd been tricked by a cheesy panda mask, but besides that all was well, he could still marry Ranma to one of his daughters as the curse could be reversed with hot water.

"That story is sad, Saotome. But if you had only pushed your son into the spring of drowned penguin…" Soun said as he trailed off into thoughts that would probably best be left out but will be included anyway. 'Or if PenPen fell into the spring of drowned girl… ah hell, Ranma turns into a girl, spring of drowned man would work too!'

Genma raised an eyebrow, "I'm not even going to try Tendo," Genma shook his head, sometimes his friend had some strange ides. "I'm not even going to try."

Soun laughed and then cleared his throat "Anyway! Now Ranma, to attend to the reason your father brought you here anyway…"

"What?" Ranma asked suspiciously, he felt his sixth-sense flare up warning him of impending doom. "Pops what didn't you tell me?"

Ranma looked over at his father how was wearing the panda mask again and holding up a sign that said 'Nothing!', Ranma just had to sigh and turn back to Soun.

"Ranma these are my three daughters," Soun began with a sweeping motion that included his three daughters, and PenPen, who were now sitting at the table. "This is Kasumi, she's nineteen." Soun indicated his oldest daughter with a gesture.

"Hi!" Kasumi said cheerfully with a sweet smile as she waved. Ranma couldn't help but notice her long brown-blond hair.

"And this is Nabiki! She's sixteen." Soun indicated his middle daughter, who just nodded at Ranma.

"And last is Akane, she's my little sixteen year old girl!" Soun said gesturing in the direction of the last daughter as tears welled up in his eyes.

"This is Akane huh?" Ranma said as he pulled himself up and looked at the figure Soun had indicated. "I don't know she looks kinda like a big penguin to me…"

"Ranma!" Akane yelled as she flipped the table up and hit him over the head with it. "I'm over here, that's PenPen!"


	3. The School!

Chapter three of Soun and Genma's… Operation Conquer the World!

* * *

"Ouch!" was all that Ranma could say after being hit upside the head with the table.

"Now, Ranma my boy, it's time for you to choose." Soun said with a giant smile that would have given Ranma nightmares if he could have seen it.

"Choose what?" Ranma asked as he pulled himself out from under the table.

"One of my daughters!" Soun said excitedly. "Choose one, choose one!"

"For what?" Ranma asked, clueless as to what Mr. Tendo could be talking about.

That was when Genma backhanded him with a sign that read "To marry! He wants you to pick one to marry!"

"Well said Saotome!" Soun said, "Now pick one Ranma."

'Eh? What? Is _this_ why pops pulled me al the way down here? I can't believe this! He didn't even tell me I was going to be choosing my wife today! Why do I have to choose now anyway? And why does it have to be one of this guy's daughters?' Ranma sighed and looked from daughter to daughter to penguin to daughter.

Kasumi spoke up relieving Ranma of the spotlight for a few moments. "Akane would be perfect for him! I mean she didn't kill him, that's got to be a sign from God!"

"Yeah!" Nabiki chimed in agreeing, "And Akane can't stand boys and Ranma's only a boy part of the time." Nabiki closed her eyes and nodded, putting her best 'its-a-perfect-plan' face on.

"What?" Akane sputtered. "Why are you trying to dump him on me?"

"But Akane, he's perfect for you!" Kasumi protested. 'And he's simply too young for me, I mean what would people say?'

"That's right," Nabiki agreed, "But if you don't want him I'll take him?" Nabiki smiled at Akane in the same manner as when she'd sold Akane's doll collection on e-bay… along with her bed and schoolbooks.

Akane paled, she couldn't let Ranma come to that sort of fate… He was a jerk and all, but he was still human and nobody deserved _that_. "Well… Alright." Akane grumbled, "But he's not sleeping in my room, and you have to feed him and pay him." Akane pointed at both of her sisters respectively.

"HEY!! I'm not some sorta dog or something!" Ranma protested indignant at the implications… until he saw the maniacal gleam in Akane's eyes.

"ALL BOYS ARE DOGS!!" Akane screamed in his ear, causing it to start to ring in time to his heartbeat. Ranma paled at the outburst and just sat down quietly, perhaps the smartest thing he'd done all day.

"Well, boy, good job. Now that the Tendo School of Anything Goes Tae Kwon Do will be joined with the Saotome School of Quantum Logic!!" Soun said boisterously as he danced around the room.

"Yes, boy," Genma said in a joyfully tone, "you do your father proud!"

Ranma just looked dumbly at them all.

"Ranma?" Genma questioned, a bit softer and a bit of concern edging his voice.

"SPEAK UP!! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!" Ranma shouted at the top of his lungs.

- - - - - - - - - -

Ranma woke up to the sensation of falling, at first he thought it was part of a nightmare he'd had where he'd been chased by a penguin claiming to be his fiancee who was then joined by another and then another. That was when he woke up to the koi pond in the back of the Tendo's rushing up to meet him.

Ranma splashed around as she made her way to the edge of the pond. "What'd ya do that for?" The irate redhead demanded of older man who was standing smugly on the back porch.

"You're getting soft boy! You didn't even hear me when I yelled that breakfast was ready." Genma explained.

"Breakfast!!" Ranma echoed when the word was spoken, "I'm starved!" Ranma rushed into the Tendos so fast that Genma was knocked off the porch and into the rose bush at the side of the door.

"Ouch! Ranma you, ow, just wait until I, yow!, get out of here!" Genma said as he fought to disentangle himself from the painful plant.

"You'd better hurry up Ranma." Nabiki said dryly as she finished her breakfast, handed the dishes to Kasumi to the kitchen and stood to leave for school, "School's in thirty minutes."

"School? What about school?" Ranma asked in between wolfing giant bites of the breakfast pancakes down. "I don't need to go to school or nothin, pops taught me plenty of other stuff than the Art when we were travelin."

"Oh, Ranma, you've just got to go to school!" Kasumi then informed him that they'd already prepared by registering him and everything, "Besides, You'll be going with Akane and Nabiki." Kasumi finished.

"Well, I suppose it won't hurt nothin… but I still think it'll be a waste of time." Ranma snorted, "It's not like I ever used all that other stuff pops taught me either!"

"Just go to school Ranma!" Genma growled, almost thinking of taking the boy over his knee, God knows sometimes he needed it!

- - - - - - - - - -

Ranma walked along behind and above Akane as he walked on the chain-link fence beside the sidewalk whistling an aimless tune.

"What _are_ you doing up there?" Akane asked her new fiancee rather irritatedly.

"Keepen' in practice, the Saotome School of Anything Goes specializes in mid-air combat… so you've got to have a good sense of balance." Ranma explained as he crouched down to talk to Akane.

"Whatever…" Akane said as she rolled her eyes and finished rather peevishly, "just don't make us late for school."

It was a very close call, Ranma almost had an accident when one of the resident's automatic sprinklers went off almost soaking the poor lad.

Ranma and Akane ran into the schoolyard mere minutes before the school bell was to ring. Ranma just stared at the mass of boys that were crowding the space between the gate and the entrance to the school building. It looked like it was the entire male populace of the school body was amassed for something… "Hey, Akane, what's all this?"

"Nothing I can't handle Ranma!" Akane virtually screeched as she started to run into the mob of boys violently knocking them out and causing their bodies to fly all over the place.

Ranma hopped down and started to plow through the mass as well, much to Akane's irritation. "I can do this by myself you jerk!" She yelled as she took a swing at him.

"What!?" Ranma yelled back in surprise, "I was only tryin' to help! Besides it wouldn't do to let a weak girl like you get beat up!"

"RANMA!!" Akane yelled as she viciously attacked him, or rather tried to, he was never where her punches were landing. 'What's with this guy? Is he reading my moves or something?'

"Halt!" a voice yelled drawing the attention of both Akane and Ranma, "You there why do you provoke such a beautiful flower to such burning anger? You foul knave, I, Tatewake Kuno shall defend this fair damsel from the likes of your evil… for I am the undefeated kendo champion, the True Blue Thunder of Furinkan High, the Giant Squid of Doom and I shall not rest until I see that the justice of heaven, slowly yet surly, shall smite you into nothingness!!" Kuno declared with fervor as lightning illuminated the background adding a certain, and impressive, dramatic backdrop to his speech.

"What?" Was all that Ranma could say, he had an urge to fall over in uncontrollable laughter but he successfully defeated it by blinking stupidly at his opponent.

Kuno said something that Ranma couldn't quite hear but it ended with "age seventeen." Kuno then turned back to face Akane, "Fear not my love, I shall save you from this insolent fool, and then you shall be free of him!"

Akane was on the verge of actually thanking Kuno when he added "Free to date me!!"

"I don't wanna date you Kuno!!" Akane yelled at the swordsman.

Kuno just calmly and replied "Yes you do."

"Alright! You've asked for it!" Ranma yelled at the wannabe swordsman and took a fighting stance, "I'm Ranma Saotome and, in the name of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, I shall punish you!"

Kuno rushed at Ranma swinging his sword in what to the untrained observer looked like wild strokes, but to the trained observer were in fact sloppy, wild strokes.

Ranma dodged out of the way, just barely, just because the strokes were sloppy didn't mean that they weren't fast.

'Wow, he's good…' Ranma thought as he tried once again to breach Kuno's defenses. Dodging, twisting and slipping through Kuno's strokes. 'Just a little more…'

'Amazing!' Kuno thought as he continued his wild assault on the martial artist, 'He's dodging all my attacks, that's impossible!' Kuno felt a brush across his forehead as Ranma flipped behind him and kicked the back of his knee sending him crumpling to the ground. 'He can't be human… unless…'

Ranma turned to Akane and said "Come on, we don't want to be," Ranma was interrupted by the tardy bell as it rang throughout the school grounds, "late…" he finished trailing off. 'Oh well.'

- - - - - - - - - -

"You just had to open your mouth you idiot!" Akane was tempted to throw the bucket of water at Ranma. "So far you've managed to get us both punished like this for every class we've had today!" Akane was seething, she didn't know how she'd been caught up in half of the things Ranma had done to get punished like this but it was getting old quickly.

"What!?" A male voice screamed in surprise, "I won't allow it! I simply cannot allow it! There is no way that I, Tatewake Kuno, could sit idly by and let such a vile occurrence transpire!" Kuno yelled as he rounded the corner into the hall where Akane and Ranma were standing with their buckets of water.

"No!" Akane blurted out as it donned on her why Kuno was so upset, but it was too late…

"I will never accept the engagement of Ranma Saotome to Akane Tendo!" Kuno bellowed in a voice that had probably been heard in neighboring schools.

"Oh, no..." Akane sighed as she slid down the wall.

Ranma on the other hand was busy trying to dodge Kuno's wooden sword when the entire student body suddenly seemed to appear clogging the hallway and making it not only stupid to fight but dangerous as well. "Kuno, this is no place for a fight… if you wanna fight follow me!" Ranma said while dodging Kuno's swings, then he turned and ran down the hall.

"Then follow you I shall!" Kuno said chasing the pigtailed martial artist.

"Hey! Wait for us!" The student body yelled, intent on not missing such a fight.

"Alright! This way!" Ranma said as he spied an open window and proceeded to jump out of it.

"You'll not escape me that easily Saotome!" Kuno yelled as he jumped headfirst through the window.

"Wait, aren't we on the third floor?" One of the students, Hiroshi, asked another, Daisuke.

"Yeah, but the pool's down there, so they might be ok." Daisuke replied.

Akane sighed, "That's the pool the principal keeps a two-inch thick steel cover on."

There resounded a double _Clang!_ to underscore Akane's observation.

Daisuke winced at the sound while Hiroshi went to the window and peered down. "That's gotta hurt." he sagely observed.

"I want to look away… but I can't." Yuka wailed.

"Oh, come on Yuka! I thought you wanted to be a nurse!" Sayuri chided her friend teasingly.

- - - - - - - - - -

Soun sighed as he sat down to turn on the tv, it was harder then one would think running and operating a penguin hatchery in addition to teaching Tae Kwon Do. Now he could relax and watch some television.

What he saw made his blood run cold though, "Genma!! Genma!! Get in here quick!"

"What? What is it Soun?" Genma asked as he came rushing in.

"We've got to go save Ranma! It's going to rain!" Soun wailed, thinking of how he would get teased by the other martial artists in town if the learned that he'd engaged his daughter to a part-time girl.

"Well, I'm sure he'll be ok, I mean he is under the school's roof, right?" Genma tried to reassure his friend.

"But he doesn't have an umbrella!" Soun wailed, thoroughly unwilling to be comforted.

"Don't worry then!" Genma said snatching an umbrella from it's place in the closet. "We'll take one to him."

- - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, on a severely dented steel pool-cover below, two figures stirred and seemed to come to life at the same time. The amazing thing was that they could still move considering that they'd come crashing into a solid steel plate.

"Alright Saotome!" Kuno said bringing his bokken to bear. "Now we finish this!"

"Fine Kuno!" Ranma growled, "Let's dance."

Kuno blinked several times before asking, "What kind of dance, ballroom? Square dance? Swing?" Then Kuno became angry, "Why would I want to dance with you anyway?"

"I don't know…" Ranma replied, then added flippantly, "I thought it might be fun."

Kuno's eyes boggled, "I'm not that kind of guy Saotome!"

"Good, cause I ain't either!" Ranma said as he charged.

Twenty minutes later Ranma and Kuno were both panting when the first few raindrops fell from the sky. "I'll get, _huff, huff_, you yet, _huff_, Saotome!"

"Right, huff, like you cou, _huff, huff_, ld even hit the, _huff_, broad side of a, _huff, huff_, buildin!" Ranma replied.

"Ranma!" Akane yelled as she ran up carrying a pot full of hot water.

"What!?" the redhead turned then recognized the change in his voice… 'Oh no, when did this happen? Just what I need! Kuno knowin my secret.'

Just then Soun and Genma came running up with an umbrella.

"What's going on here?" Soun demanded. In a voice that told them that there was no way that he'd accept anything less than a complete and detailed explanation.

"Kuno knows my secret!"Ranma said, glad for a chance to catch her breath.

Kuno looked up, "Where'd Saotome go?" he wondered aloud then continued in thought, 'I know not where that foul one went, but whom might this lovely goddess of beauty be?'

"You, fair one, I am Tatewake Kuno, and I wish to take thee on a date!" Kuno said as he suddenly seemed to gain all the energy he'd spent fighting the cursed Saotome that dared to stand between him and Akane Tendo!

Genma smiled, this was the perfect time, "Ranma! Use _Quantum Logic_!" he said as he handed his son the umbrella and doused him with the hot water Akane had brought.

Kuno stood mouth agape, there where the beautiful pig-tailed girl had stood was the hated Ranma Saotome! "What on Earth was going on here? What happened to that beauteous red-haired pigtailed girl?"

Ranma looked at Kuno rather nervously, "Hey, Kuno, you know that the sun can play tricks with the light and all… " Ranma didn't notice Genma wince, this _wasn't_ Quantum Logic, "it was just the sunlight playing tricks on my hair!" Ranma laughed a thoroughly unconvincing laugh.

'What has he done with her!? That foul sorcery using pervert!' Kuno shook with rage, "What are you trying to do, outsmart me you insolent cur!? The mind of Tatewake Kuno is too much for one such as you, whelp!"

Ranma just stood there dumbfounded for a moment before punching Kuno in the face.

"My son…" Genma sighed and shook his head "is useless."


	4. The Music!

Chapter four of Soun and Genma's… Operation Conquer the World!

* * *

Early the morning at the Tendo dojo the morning after Ranma's mixed success in his duel with Tatewake Kuno there was a crash as a body went flying out of a second-story window and into the koi pond below. This plunge was immediately followed by a shout of "I don't want to learn your stupid Quantum Logic you dumb old man!!"

Genma Saotome of the Saotome School of Martial Art, the purveyor and creator of Quantum Logic, pulled himself out of the pond with a sigh. "There's gratitude for you Saotome.." he mumbled to himself before letting out a bitter laugh. His son was so unwilling to even try to learn the True Art. Perhaps he should teach his son that he wasn't '_all that_'… and he certainly hadn't arrived. Genma sat down cross legged and began shutting the rest of the world away and concentrating on constructing a suitable plan.

- - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, Ranma rolled over and tried to go to sleep, then he rolled over again. After several minutes of being unable to get comfortable enough to sleep he decided to get up. Not that he would do any of that Quantum Logic crap his dad was harping about as the 'True Art'. Ranma couldn't help but snort at that, it was ridiculous, plain and simple.

Ranma would have done schoolwork, if it had held any interest for him at all that is. Instead he went downstairs to the training hall and started stretching so he could work on his katas.

He was just finishing his third kata when Akane came into the room and looked at him intensely with a questioning gaze.

"What do you want you uncute tomboy?" Ranma slurred at the intruder and started on a series of punches, kicks, and blocks that was interrupted by a truly unladylike squawk of indignance.

Ranma looked over at Akane who stared back with an intently angry gaze that just made Ranma want to hit something… not Akane, because she was a girl and, let's face it, just plainly weaker, slower, dumber, and otherwise inferior.

"Oh, so ya wanna fight?" Ranma laughed smugly at Akane, this was going to be easy… he'd just humiliate her by not letting her even touch him. 'Yeah, that sounds good… I'll just humiliate her and prove I'm the best!' Ranma laughed aloud with the smug arrogance that the prideful always seem to acquire as he dropped into a ready stance.

Ranma hadn't even blinked, or even taken a full breath, when he found himself flying backwards from a powerful kick, and as he rolled to his feet after smashing painfully into the wall, he thought to himself. 'Wow, who knew those short, stubby legs could pack such a wallop!'

Ranma shook himself out of his amazed stupor just in time to dodge another flying kick from his opponent and countered with a quick jab as he whirled around the side, but both maneuvers were useless as his punch was solidly blocked and he never saw the kick falling down from the sky like the proverbial vengeance of heaven, although he felt it afterward, and for most of the week for that matter.

"What are you doing there?" a voice asked from the training hall entrance…

"Akane?" Ranma frantically looked back and forth between the two Akanes and promptly developed a migraine. "But, I… you…" Ranma sputtered ineffectually as he continued to look back and forth.

Akane looked over to see what Ranma was sputtering about and saw only PenPen… then it dawned on her that he'd mistaken her for the penguin, or perhaps the penguin for her… but that was moot at this point because the vein on her forehead was throbbing with almost as much violence as she threw into the punch while she yelled "RANMA!!"

Turning around after sending Ranma flying through the roof of the training hall Akane sighed and thought to herself as she started for the livingroom and breakfast. It was horrible that she was constantly being confused with a penguin, I mean she didn't really look like a short, waddling, flightless bird, did she? And it was still a sore spot that her father spent far more time training PenPen in the Tendo School of Anything Goes Tae Kwon Do, enough that the penguin was in the second phase of training, _Indiscriminate Tae Kwon Do_. Her father called it _the three in's_, the most advanced stage was _Inconsistent Tae Kwon Do_, the intermediate stage was _Indiscriminate Tae Kwon Do_, and the first stage, _her_ stage, was what he termed _Incredible Tae Kwon Do_. "How corny!" Akane growled under her breath as she sat down for breakfast… though she couldn't understand why everyone was edging away to give her such a wide berth.

- - - - - - - - - -

Ranma thought hard as he stared at the clock on the schoolroom wall, an extremely unusual occurrence for him as he would much rather sleep, but as it had nothing to do with school it wasn't out of character either. He sighed as the teacher began to drone on, it was history maybe, or perhaps English… it could be math too, he never paid much attention to irrelevant details like that before, why should he start now?

"I don't know which was worse… thinking I'd been beaten by a girl… or knowing I'd been beaten by a penguin…" Ranma muttered to himself as he drew on his desk with a pencil and tried to go over how he could have won that fight with that stupid penguin.

"The penguin, man, definitely the penguin." The guy sitting next to him said, startling Ranma, who thought for an instant that this guy could read thoughts before realizing that he'd spoken aloud. Without even looking at Ranma, and still seeming to maintain a large degree of concentration on the teacher, the other student said "I'm Hiroshi, nice to meet you."

"Ranma Saotome," Ranma answered, and was about to say more as the teacher whirled around and stared straight at him.

The teacher didn't speak as much as bellow "Saotome!! Hall!!" he yelled as he threw a pulsating index finger at a pail of water that was near the door.

Sighing Ranma got up and excused himself from the classroom, that was incredible, the teacher had been at the front of the classroom, facing the blackboard, and talking when Ranma had introduced himself to the other boy… it was almost like the old saying 'eyes in the back of his head' was actually true, or maybe the man simply had really, really good hearing. It really didn't matter at this point though, he had to go stand in the hall holding buckets of water now.

- - - - - - - - - -

Kasumi looked at the figure of Genma Saotome, still sitting there after all these hours, completely unresponsive to all her efforts to get his attention. Sighing, she let the duster droop as she turned to her father and asked "What should I do with your friend here father? I need to dust there… but he looks so peaceful."

Soun looked from Kasumi to Genma and back again before replying "Just dust around him. He'll probably be like that for some time." Soun reassured his daughter, "When he sits and thinks like that he's usually contemplating a complex problem of some sort. Why he last time I saw him do this was when he sealed Ha… I mean the master, away."

"Father?" Kasumi asked with a trace of curiosity in her voice. "You've never told us much about your master… why is that?"

Soun broke into a cold sweat, just hearing someone mention _The Master_ sent shivers down his spine, caused the room to get hot and stuffy, and also made him break out in a cold sweat. "W-w-well, Ka-ka-ka-suuumi, th-the m-m-master's training was ho-ho-horrible!" Soun stuttered along before bursting into tears.

Most people would think that Soun Tendo was being something of a drama queen or a crybaby right now and accuse him of having a terminal case of chickenheartedness, but then most people have never served as an apprentice under the evil and debased master Happosai. Any normal human would cry after being forced to do such terrible and amoral deeds, and that's just the Master's "mandatory extracurricular activities", the actual training itself was arduous, punishing, toilsome, and grueling… the only time one was safe was sleeping, and not one's own sleep, but the master's. the whole experience was the stuff that would give nightmares to nightmares.

"There-there father." Kasumi said comfortingly, "it's been a long time since then. Surely he'd dead by now, there's no need for you to cry so." She said the only words that could really comfort her father concerning the master, only death, destruction, and random Chaos could reach Soun Tendo when he was thinking about his former master.

"Th-th-thanks Kasumi." Soun said as he gradually brought himself back under control, shuddering sporadically, and thanking God that she hadn't pressed any further. "You know Kasumi, you're right…" Soun said as he got up and started walking to one of the storage rooms.

"Right about what?" Kasumi wondered for the few moments her father was in the room moving things around and searching for something. "What is father doing?"

Soun burst out of the storage room with a medium sized box and a huge grin on his face. "I knew we still had this!" Soun was all but singing as he sat down across from Genma and placed the box between them.

"What father?" Kasumi asked, eyeing the inch thick layer of dust on the box.

"This!" Soun inhaled and then, to his eldest daughter's dismay, blew all the dust off the box. "Shogi! See!" Soun smiled and pointed at the now dust-free box, completely missing the dismayed look on Kasumi's face.

"Alight, you don't mind if I set up a game do you Saotome?" Soun asked his unresponsive houseguest, and when Genma made no reply Soun smiled and said "I thought you'd see it my way." as he began setting the board up.

"Now, Saotome, you don't mind if I make the first move, do you?" Soun asked after he had set the board up.

- - - - - - - - - -

It was incredible. Simply incredible. How could it be that a single highschool student could cause so much trouble? It wasn't as if Furinkan High had a bad reputation, like being the center of mass destruction, senseless chaos, and delinquency like some of the other schools had. Most of the so called delinquency stemmed directly from the principal, but still… this Ranma Saotome meant trouble, or he wasn't Master Sergeant Ralph Baxtley, Ret. US ARMY.

This was why it didn't so much as surprise him as confirm his thoughts when he saw the Saotome boy involved in a fight during the lunch period. It was a good thing he'd been able to get him out of his class before the boy could cause a real disturbance.

If he was back in the Army things'd be different and he'd have fixed this troubled boy, but as a teacher now it was quite beyond his current jurisdiction. That and as long as he could be pushed off on someone else Ranma Saotome would be nothing more than a minor annoyance.

MSG Ralph Baxtley chuckled as he watched the fight between the Saotome boy and the strange kid in the bandanna. Even if they weren't his problem he could still enjoy a fight and admire the technique of the victor.

- - - - - - - - - -

It had started as a simple question, sure the surprise attack was underhanded and, well, a surprise, but it was the answer, or rather the lack thereof that really got the attacker going. Who'd have thought Akane asking "Who's this, Ranma?" would result in a fight?

After a few moments of trying to remember exactly who this was Ranma simply stopped trying. He'd been in too many places, seen too many people, and done too much on his near ten-year training journey with his father to remember every person he'd seen, much less pissed off.

"Wait!" Ranma exclaimed in the middle of a killer uppercut, "You're that guy!!"

"What guy!?" the stranger asked as he reciprocated the hit with interest. "Don't tell my you've forgotten the single guy you beat up _every_ day in middle school!!"

If Ranma had been really empathetic with other people he would have sensed the pain. Surprise, anguish, and sheer outrage in the voice, as it was it sounded to Ranma as a simple question, and so he answered it calmly and rationally with a short and simple "No, I don't."

The other's face fell, and it seemed as if he were trying to say something with the way his mouth was opening and closing. "Hibiki! Ryoga Hibiki, you moron!!" the boy screamed so loudly that Ranma would have felt it through the ground if it had been an octave lower. "You can't have forgotten me yet!! Not after humiliating me like you did!!"

"So Ranma, who is this?" Akane asked for what seemed like the twelfth time in as many minutes. "What did you do to make him so angry at you anyway?"

"I don't know! I don't know!" Ranma yelled at Akane, not particularly a wise thing to do in theses circumstances, but understandable when someone was nagging. "Just let me fight!" Ranma growled as he dodged between punches and delivered a kick to Ryoga's jaw that sent the bandana-clad boy reeling and made half the watching student body wince in empathy as the echo of his teeth clacking together faded.

The other half winced when Ranma turned around to meet Akane's foot in his abdomen and sent him flying up and over Ryoga, who was shaking his head to clear it and charging at the same time. "I'll get you Ranma!" Ryoga yelled as he ran blindly by Akane's side.

The entire student body was surprised when he ran into the wall of the school building… and didn't stop.

- - - - - - - - - -

Akane sighed, this was embarrassing to say the least. "Oh come on Ranma!"

"N-n-no! I c-c-can't g-go!" Ranma sputtered, and Akane thought, not for the first time today, that Ranma was _weird_. "R-r-really! I Can't!" Ranma wailed again. "No Akane, NO!!" Ranma struggled to get away in terror.

"What's gotten into you Ranma? It's only music class." Akane asked, she was only dimly aware that she was probably still in shock over the normally beyond-manly macho Ranma huddled there gabbing his knees and on the verge of crying from sheer terror.

"Don't make me go in there, it'll be horrible… I'll turn into some kinda monster." Ranma pathetically whined as the tears finally broke and started to roll down his cheek.

"Oh, really!?" Akane grabbed his arm and forcibly pulled him into the music class.

"Honestly!" Akane muttered under her breath as the teacher in the front took roll-call.

It was mesmerizing, in a train-wreck kind of way, how the teacher could speak in that monotone and still keep his students awake and aware, in what seemed a painfully intentionally way. "Bueller? Bueller?" The teacher was droning at the moment.

'Good, he's still on B…' Akane thought, 'that meas that we can still appear normal if Ranma can straighten up…' Akane reluctantly looked over at Ranma, dreading that she would find a quivering blob of what could only be called human in the biological sense of the word… and to her surprise Ranma was sitting in his chair, without her having to forcefully sit him down either. 'Maybe this'll work out,' she thought as she concluded her glance of Ranma.

It was another few minutes before the teacher, a Mr. Stein, finally got to Ranma. "Saotome? Saotome?" He paused a moment to see if anyone would respond when Akane elbowed Ranma and he shot up in his chair shouting "Here!!"

"Very good Mr. Saotome." Mr. Stein said as he arched an eyebrow, the most emotion that he'd yet shown caused the rest of the class to snap out of their trances. Meanwhile, Mr. Stein continued in his monotone, "Now class, we should all strive be as excited about music as Mr. Saotome and I are."

"Oh brother." Akane sighed, missing the end of the teacher's admonition. 'Excited… Right…' Akane was trying not to laugh when he called her. "H-H-Here!" She replied hastily, almost breaking into uncontrollable laughter.

"There, there, Miss. Tendo," Mr. Stein said in a comforting manner that, while not lacking sincerity, lacked any emotional tone. "We all feel shy on our first day. However, I can assure you that nothing embarrassing will happen to you in my class."

Akane felt relived, in an odd way, that their teacher had mistaken her attempt to stifle her laughter as embarrassment. It would certainly help if Ranma were to relax a little, Akane thought as he looked over at him, he was pale, sweating like a football player finishing practice, and so tense that his arms looked ready to snap as he clutched the seat of his desk. 'Oh brother.' Akane didn't feel much relived now, it was embarrassing just looking at him here, scared witless at a _music_ class, much less being engaged to him!

"Ok, class, let's begin shall we?" Mr. Stein asked in a purely rhetoric way that, while devoid of any tone, still managed to carry along something that might vaguely something related to excitement or perhaps anxiety. Maybe it was something in the rhythm that he used? "Welcome to Jazz" CRASH!

Mr. Stein was interrupted by the sound of Ranma breaking his desk, breathing heavily as he clutched two splintered wooden remnants of his desk.

"class." Mr. Stein finished, unfazed by the unexpected behavior of his student. "We'll start with Chuck Mangione." Mr. Stein pulled out a remote and pointed it at a receiver.

"NOOOOO!!" Ranma yelled as he made a mad dive at the remote, missing by a good twelve feet and falling flat on his face Ranma shuddered as he heard the upbeat music start to emanate from the speakers.

- - - - - - - - - -

"What's this?" Kasumi held up a black and yellow book that she'd accidently pulled out of Genma Saotome's pocket when she snagged her duster on it. "Father?"

"Just a moment Kasumi… he's a formidable opponent." Soun rubbed his chin and then gestured to the shogi board where all the pieces, save one, lay untouched in their starting positions.

Kasumi looked at her father, the board, Mr. Saotome, and her father again. "I don't think he's going to move anytime soon Father, you've been sitting there waiting for him to move for four hours now."

"Really? What makes you say that?" Soun asked as he looked up.

"Because he's asleep father." Kasumi calmly replied.

"What makes you say that?" Soun asked again, sounding oddly like a broken record.

"I heard him snoring just now." Kasumi's reply was emphasized by the sitting form os Genma Saotome falling on it's side and exhaling an unmistakable snore.

"I see." was all that Soun said, it wasn't like he could argue with that kind of evidence. If he knew Quantum Logic… maybe, but he didn't so that hardly mattered. "What's that you have there?" Soun asked, nodding at the book Kasumi clutched in her hands.

Kasumi sighed as she handed the book to her father, sometimes it seemed like it was all so… futile.

"The Martial Artist's Guide to Obtaining Culture." Soun read the title out loud, 'This sounds kind of interesting.' He thought as he opened to the book to the place Genma had marked. "Let's see what you've been doing, shall we Saotome?" Soun muttered at his sleeping friend.

"Chapter 8: Jazz – The Trumpet Fist" Soun read aloud, "The Trumpet-fist is perhaps the easiest way to instill culture in even the most stubborn of students, it's ease of use and rapid training combine synergeticly to produce the optimized memory retention and behavior conditioning in the subject!?" Soun turned it into a question at the end even though it lacked the question mark, this was kinda weird stuff, Soun continued. "The training is simple, all one has to do is: Tie the trainee up, cover with Cajun food, and throw him on the stage of a Jazz or Blues band…" Soun trailed off as he imagined Genma tying himself up in the rafters above a Jazz band, rolling in Cajun food, and throwing himself, well rolling, off the rafters and into the band below. "A true martial artist to the end!" Soun exclaimed as he wiped a tear from his eye.

- - - - - - - - - -

Ranma could feel it taking root. It was the most horrible and vile of sensations, like he was trapped watching as he made a fool of himself, it was always like this when the Trumpet-Fist training took a hold of him and he started to dance to the music, beautifully, explosively, and completely against his will. Ranma tried to scream as he felt himself take a step in time with the music, then another,, and a third. That's when he felt himself slipping into the Trumped-Fist, vaguely aware that the true terror of the Trumpet-Fist still had to emerge.

Ranma's class mates watched on in rapt fascination as the new kid, Ranma Saotome, started to dance with the music. If they hadn't thought he was weird when he jumped during roll-call, or after breaking his desk, they sure did now.

Akane tried to hide and hope nobody thought to associate her with Ranma, maybe if she was lucky she could find some way to annul their engagement or something. It was bad enough that he turned into a girl… but _this_?

Ranma, now in the full throes of the Trumpet-Fist smiled as he danced over to the CD player and switched out the CD with one that he pulled out of thin air and danced with it as he ejected the CD that was in the player. Akane wasn't sure, but she thought she saw 'Broadway' on the case in Ranma's hand.

Moments later Akane was treated to Ranma's preformance of 'Tradition' from _Fiddler on the Roof_, 'Oklahoma' from _Oklahoma_, 'Where did Things Go Right?' and 'Springtime for Hitler' from _The Producers_. She shuddered constantly as Ranma did things that no mortal should… and what was worse was for his finale well let's just say there's a line that'll be going around Furinkan for a while: "Take it away PenPen!"

* * *

Author's Notes: Yeah, SnEptUne, I knew about the spelling, which I've corrected. You see sleep deprivation is _not_ the time you want to run a spell-checker, especially if it's on an English paper. (They took more points off for wrong words than misspelt ones where I did this, lowered my score quite a bit.) I've taken care of it and re-uploaded the previous chapters. Thanks for the heads up though.

Akane'sWife - Here's your autograph:

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Tip - If you can't read it then cut n' paste the preceding into edit.com  
Sorry about that before... has some weird upload "features". However I did fix the autograph. 


	5. The Haircut!

Chapter five of Soun and Genma's… Operation Conquer the World!

* * *

**PG-13** _Parental Guidance Suggested_

This _chapter_ contains material that parents may find unsuitable for younger children. Many parents may want to read it with their younger children. The theme itself may call for parental guidance and/or the program contains one or more of the following: moderate violence (V), some sexual situations (S), infrequent coarse language (L), or some suggestive dialogue (D).

* * *

The sudden _flash-bang!_ of the thunderstorm woke Akane from the nightmare just in time… it had almost gotten to the part where Ranma called her PenPen and pulled her up onto the stage with him.

It was even worse than the previous two nights had been. She had tried the age-old, and almost more than cliché, embarrassment-aversion method of imagining the audience in their underwear. The result had been the student body watching her make a fool of herself singing musicals while they stood there in their underwear acting like nothing was wrong. She shuddered as she recalled Hiroshi standing proudly in his size-too-small boxer briefs and hit on everyone who was wearing a bra… including, for some reason, the principal.

"'Take it away PenPen' he says…" Akane muttered under her breath before another lightning strike caused her to jump in surprise. "I'll kill him. That's what I'll do." Akane trailed off into sleep-deprived laughter that would have concerned anyone who heard it.

- - - - - - - - - -

Lightning flashed and briefly illuminated the Tendo's back yard and the figure jumping into it from atop the tall stone wall. The figure landed in a crouch, steadying himself on the soft water-soaked land with one hand just in time to avoid falling into a large puddle of rainwater.

"Today is the day you pay Ranma Saotome." The figure muttered, sinister shadows appearing as he was again briefly illuminated by the storm. Then he turned and made his way to the nearest door, all too happy to get out of the rain for a moment, and to finish business.

- - - - - - - - - -

Soun Tendo was trying not to nod off into sleep, but the late hour, the white noise of the rain outside, and his _Deluxe Overstuffed CEO UltraComfort_ chair all combined to make it very difficult to stay awake tonight. Tonight he needed to stay awake for a very special reason, _it_ would be tested tonight. The very thought of it filled him with an almost schoolboy like glee… unfortunately it didn't give him any energy.

Soun slowly swung around in his chair and faced the big digital clock. The numbers blurred before resolving into a readable time 'Ten minutes.'

He closed his eyes slowly, only to give them a rest he told himself. Then faded into the blackness of a dreamless slumber. Meanwhile, time marched on, as did the icons on his screen, _Penguin–Laser & Jamming Brigade_ 001 (_PB&J_), _Special Penguin Heavy Explosive Unit_ 013 (_Pheu!_), the _Soun's Advanced Robotic Mech_. unit (_Soun's Arms_), and _Hurricane Alphred_ (_Ha!_). All the icons converging on a small island off the coast of Florida, Cuba, or as it was labeled on-screen "Penguin Invasion Point Alpha" (_PIP_-α).

It was intuitively obvious to the casual observer, had there actually been any casual observers in Soun's secret underground lab and control center, that _PIP_-α would be in the news in the morning, either as a disaster site or as a natural-disaster site.

- - - - - - - - - -

Ryoga Hibiki pulled open the door to the toolshed for the fourth time in fifteen minutes. He didn't want to admit it, but he had to, he was lost… lost in the backyard of his enemy and rival Ranma Saotome.

"Well, " Ryoga sighed as he looked across the shelves of tools, "as long as I'm here I guess I can get out of the rain for a few minutes, at least I can hope the rain will let up."

As Ryoga entered the small shack lightning flashed and hailstones joined the rainfall. First the hail was the size of grape-seeds then the size of grapes themselves. Ryoga was glad he'd found some shelter, he'd have hated to have his umbrella torn to shreds. He would not like to be drenched out there in that icy cold rain.

- - - - - - - - - -

Ranma Saotome was currently asleep, though that wouldn't last long. A bolt of lightning struck close-by and the resulting thunderclap literally shook him out of his sleep. He tossed and turned for a while before pulling his pillow over his head and trying to go to sleep for a while.

Sometime later, Ranma didn't know, he threw his pillow aside in disgust. He wasn't going to get any more sleep tonight. 'Well, not unless…' Ranma smiled as he thought up an excellent idea to get back to sleep. He'd seen his dad use it several times, and Mr. Tendo used it almost every night.

"'Sake, sake, drinking sake…" Ranma sang tunelessly as he made his way down the hallway and into the kitchen where Mr. Tendo kept his booze. Nightcaps were supposed to help one sleep after all.

- - - - - - - - - -

Ryoga stood around for a while, trying to wait patiently, but he couldn't. He was just too close, Ranma was just yards away and he couldn't find him. "Damn you Ranma." the Hibiki boy muttered as he leaned against a shelf, particularly a Harley Davidson chainsaw.

He was more than a bit surprised when the whole interior of the toolshed sank into the ground, and moments later when the door opened he was even more surprised.

There he was in a place crammed with machinery and nameless devices, that looked like something off of an old 60s movie producer's lot. Huge whatchamacallits spring from the floor, while doodlebops hung around from various racks and support lines, but that was all nothing compared to the long-haired man sleeping in a chair in front huge wall of monitors, that guy was truly impressive.

"How could anyone sleep in here with all this racket?" Ryoga muttered, though it was lost in whine of various whatchamacallits and the drone of doodlebops that populated the underground room.

"I think I'd better get out of here…" Ryoga said to himself, looking for the chainsaw that would take him back. He only lost his way twice, though he _did_ bump into several control panels, hitting buttons, turning knobs, and twisting odd dials before he made it back into the old toolshed.

"Well _that_ was weird." Ryoga muttered to himself as he looked oddly at the chainsaw. Ryoga wondered why anyone would actually have hidden rooms in their homes in this day and age and came up blank. 'Oh well, like it really matters…' Ryoga thought to himself as he looked out the toolshed's open door and out into the wet and chill night. "It looks like the storm's let up a bit, at least it's not hailing anymore. Guess now's as good a time as any to try to find the Tendo's main house." He said aloud as he stepped out onto the muddy lawn.

- - - - - - - - - -

Ranma grabbed a random bottle, uncorked it, and took several big swigs in one quick motion… just before his toes involuntarily curled and his face twisted unnaturally in ways that no mortal should ever witness.

"Ugh! Yuck!" Ranma said, or rather tried to say, as he scrubbed futilely at the foul taste on his tongue. "I don't know how they do it." Ranma said with a newfound respect for the Tendo patriarch and even his own father, though that one was rather grudgingly given.

Ranma looked at the label now, Whiskey. Of all the things he had to grab the whiskey first. "I should have read the label first I guess." Ranma muttered to himself as he pulled himself to his feet.

He reached for another bottle, grabbed the top, hesitated, and then read the label. Vodka. Well, that couldn't be too bad, right? He unscrewed the top and drank a medium-sized portion… then collapsing on the floor in a coughing fit as it burned through his throat and stomach.

"Oh, God!" Ranma moaned when the coughing subsided, "How can anybody actually _drink_ this stuff?"

Ranma put the vodka and whisky away and shut the liquor-cabinet, with hopes of getting to the kitchen and drowning the horrid aftertaste that lingered in his mouth with a newfound dryness that made deserts look moist.

"Ranma Saotome, prepare to die!" Ryoga screamed and leapt at Ranma as soon as he rounded the corner.

Ranma was, needless to say, surprised at seeing his old schoolmate attacking him in the middle of the night. "Ryoga! Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Silence you fool! Does revenge know night or day? Week or month?" Ryoga retorted as he lunged with his umbrella.

"No, I actually wanted to know the actual time." Ranma flippantly replied as he dodged to the side., though it seemed that Ryoga had grown a bit quicker from the last time they'd fought… if you'd really want to call that schoolyard scuffle a fight.

"What!?" Ryoga asked, so surprised that he couldn't really believe what he was hearing. Ranma asking him the time… in the middle of their belated man-to-man duel.

"The time, the time!" Ranma insisted, "I know you know the time." Ranma repeated, emphasizing his point with several jabs of his finger into Ryoga's chest.

"What does time have to do with anything!?" Ryoga bellowed as he threw a punch at Ranma.

"What whad abou da… time?" Ranma asked as he staggered out of the way of Ryoga's punch. Was it him or was the room really spinning? Ranma scratched his head as he seemed to wobble fist one direction than another. "I wanna know wheeeen Mr. Tendoooooo put a-ahhh! roller-coaster in hereeeeee!"

"Grrr! Ranma!" Rouga yelled as he executed a perfect flying kick into the spot Ranma had staggered away from a bare instant before. "Stay still so I can kill you, will you?"

"Wha'd I vaunt da do that?" Ranma asked as he continued to dance, or rather stagger drunkenly about Ryoga, completely oblivious to the other's growing rage.

- - - - - - - - - -

There was a knock at the door that interrupted the youngest Tendo girl's fit of insomniacly-induced giggling.

"Huh?" Akane blinked and seemed to regain her sanity, "Who's there?"

"It's me Akane." came Kasumi's voice. There was a hint of worry in it that in turn worried Akane. "I think there's a robber downstairs."

"A robber!" Akane jumped out of bed, grabbed her training sword and swung open the bedroom door. "I'll get him with this!" Akane laughed what might have been an insane laugh but Kasumi took it only as an overconfident one.

"No, Akane! It could be dangerous." Kasumi insisted as she grabbed Akane and pulled her back into her room. "Use this." Kasumi placed a sharp-edged five pound dumbbell into her hand.

"Right!" Akane said as she turned around and marched out ready to confront any prowler, burglar, or intruder that might be unwise enough to cross her path that night with an inordinate amount of violence.

Akane giggled, she _really_ hoped it was just Ranma.

- - - - - - - - - -

"Ranma!" Ryoga shouted as Ranma stumbled past him and out the back door into the rain. "It's no use running away!" Ryoga shouted as he followed him out into the rain… only to see him become a _her_.

"Ranma!" Ryoga gasped in disbelief. One moment he was Ranma, the next he was a cute girl. Ryoga's mind struggled to put the two together but failed, though he would have been closer if he'd just jumped to the conclusion that Ranma Saotome was a foul magic-wielding sorcerer trying to rob his prey away with his deplorable machinations. Though as it was, Ryoga simply thought that, despite keeping his eyes on Ranma the whole time, he'd gotten away again.

"Excuse me miss." Ryoga said with a deep bow, bowing was always the safest course of action he'd learned in his lost dealings with many cultures. "You wouldn't happened to have seen a cowardly martial-artist running away like a whipped dog, would you have?" Ryoga asked as he indicated Ranma's approximate height when he was male.

"Goward! Bwhy you!" The cute, red-headed girl shouted as she spun around and kicked at Ryoga… though she missed by a good eight inches and the momentum tripped her up and sent her falling into one of the numerous puddles.

Ryoga gasped when he saw the cute girl fall in the mud like that and rushed over to help her up, like a proper gentleman, he even tried to share his umbrella in a futile gesture to keep her from getting wet.

"Damn him!" Ryoga growled, "I followed him around the world, across Europe, to China, to Mexico, even that place where the people wear the funny red dot on their forehead!"

"You mean India?" Ranma slurred dryly. 'Wait did he say China? Does that mean…' Ranma looked intently up at ryoga trying to think, but she couldn't seem to think straight.

Lightning flashed illuminating everything for an instant by bathing it in a searing white-hot light just before a truly terrifying scream pierced the night.

- - - - - - - - - -

Akane jumped as the flash of lightning startled her. She was surprised to see Ranma, for it could only be him, holding an umbrella and packed as if to go on a year-long training trip. And he was consorting with another girl! 'Ranma! What, I'm not good enough for you!? You're just going to pack your bags and leave with the next pretty face you meet, is that it? Even after you ruined my life!?'

"Eyah!" Akane shrieked as she threw the weight in her hand and continued with a shrill yell. "That's for ruining my life Ranma!"

The weight sped through the air, a deadly, or at least painful, ballistic. It hit Ryoga in the head, sending him sprawling backwards, and then proceeded to smash Ranma's foot along with the umbrella Ryoga dropped.

'Ranma!?' Ryoga thought, then he ran off in the direction that the projectile had been thrown. Since it had been thrown in that direction Ranma had to be that way. He would find him this time.

- - - - - - - - - -

Akane was pleased to hear the twin yelps of pain. 'That was so refreshing.' she thought to her self as she started to congratulate herself on scaring off the predator. "Yep, chalk another one up for Akane Tendo, Martial Artist and Pervert Buster!"

"Akane…" Kasumi said, trying to unobtrusively point out that the girl in the yard was Ranma.

"What is it Kasumi?" Akane asked with a joyous smile plastered to her face.

Kasumi pointed outside at Ranma, who seemed to be very dizzy, what with the way she was stumbling about.

Akane's smile slid off her face as she recognized Ranma. "That Pervert!" was all she could yell, he wasn't running off with another girl… he was running off with another guy! "Just wait till I tell daddy about this." She grumbled to herself as she walked to the back door, shut it, and locked it.

"Eeey!" Ranma yelled outside, pounding on the door, "Udd'd you do da fo'?" Though, nobody really heard Ranma because it had started to hail again.

- - - - - - - - - -

"That's odd." Soun Tendo said as he gingerly stepped over the sleeping form of Ranma Saotome, curled up on the porch for some reason. Perhaps it was some form of martial art training… he'd have to ask Genma about that.

Soun looked around the livingroom at everyone gathered there. It must have been later than he thought. The big digital-clock in his command center had been unplugged sometime during the night and he'd missed the chance to witness the very first penguin invasion in realtime.

"Hello everyone!" He said jovially, it was strange, but he didn't feel all that bad about missing the battle and not being able to supervise. Even the communication equipment that had been fried during a lightning strike the previous night wasn't enough to dampen his spirits… in fact he almost looked forward to reading the paper with "Penguins Invade Cuba" plastered across the front page. "Does anyone know why Ranma's sleeping on the back porch?"

"Cause he's a pervert." Akane stated dryly, her eyes seemed sunken and black, like she'd not been getting enough sleep recently.

"Huh? What do you mean by that?" Soun asked as he paused unrolling his newspaper, his curiosity piqued.

Akane related the story of thinking that he was running off withe another girl, and then the even worse sin of actually running off with another guy. Genma was shocked by the story and throughout denied that his son was like _that_, and to prove that Ranma wasn't he went and retrieved his wayward child in a manner not unreminiscent of a mother cat hauling a kitten around by the scruff of its neck.

"Now, Ranma tell Mr. Tendo you're not gay" Genma prodded the still groggy Ranma.

"What?" Ranma asked, not believing that he was being questioned about this, he was after all a man among men… despite his current feminine body.

"Now!" Genma all but shouted. He couldn't believe that he was being asked to prove Ranma wasn't _really_ some pervert.

"Aghhh!" Ranma shut her eyes and hugged herself trying to drown out the savage headache. "Not so loud!"

"Well boy?" Soun was leaning over intrusively. "Are you?"

"No! I'm no stinkin fag!" Ranma screeched, then passed out, the pain from the headache being to much.

"See?" Genma pointed out, "I told you."

"Quite right Saotome… Though I must say that kids these days have no stamina." Soun said as he nodded at the collapsed form of Ranma, then turned back to his newspaper freezing as he read the headline… the sheer shock of seeing the headline - _Hurricane Mysteriously Deposits Penguins in Cuba, Leaves Mass Destruction_ - wouldn't wear off for a couple of hours… and he wouldn't stop crying until mid-afternoon.

- - - - - - - - - -

Ranma tried to be very still in classes, he didn't want to make any sudden movements or be yelled at by the teachers. Not that he payed attention of course. His thoughts kept returning to the muddled memories of the fight the night before as he fingered the red material of the heavy umbrella he'd found in the back yard that morning tearing it even more than last night's hail had.

'Did Ryoga say China? If so, does that mean that he had a curse as well?' Ranma decided to wait and see… maybe he'd try some of that _scientific method_ the teachers were always harping about and douse the lost-boy with water the next time he dared to show his face. Ranma grinned at that, the thought of messing with Ryoga felt strangely comfortable… maybe, if the curse was somehow bad enough, he could blackmail him with that, too.

- - - - - - - - - -

Ryoga Hibiki growled as he wrung the stream water out of his clothes, it hadn't been a good day, not at all. He hadn't been able to find Saotome, and he'd gotten all wet in his last set of clean clothes. One of the first things Ryoga had learned was to keep his clothes as clean and dry as possible. It took a long time to find a new set when you were wandering all around parts of nowhere, miles from civilization.

"I can't believe he got away…" Ryoga didn't know wether to be furious or depressed and then thought of how he'd been trapped out in the cold rain without his umbrella, and how long it had taken him to warm up even with the hot-water from his travel kettle. '_Depressed_, I should be depressed.'

And so Ryoga Hibiki settled on a depressed stewing. "I can't go back to the Tendo Dojo, Ranma wouldn't be there so soon after I spooked him off. I don't think he'd go back to Ohio, I mean it is in the middle of Africa… And Canada's right in the middle of the Pakistan/India war… maybe he went to South America, I don't think he's been there yet…" Ryoga sighed, he had no real idea as to where Ranma would have fled. "I suppose I could try to go home for a while. Who knows, I might get lucky and meet dad or mom there."

Ryoga tilted his head as he thought he heard murmurings, and not the murmuring of the stream, something more like people… the sounds of people, especially girls, giggling, and a few young men talking in subdued tones. Ryoga took a deep breath and, steeling himself for the worst, nervously turned around to find himself in front of half the student body of Furinkan High.

"Heh, heh… heh." Was all that Ryoga could manage as he stood, frozen in place, staring into the crowd. He felt his face start to turn from pink to bright red to a burning fire from all the embarrassment. Two-thirds of the crowd was probably female, and watching him do his laundry in his boxers. Ryoga was only dimly aware of a young man saying something about it probably being illegal to do that on school property as he began to feel faint and heard something that roused him completely.

"Ranma, you jerk!". Akane shouted as she punted him into the crowd of students.

"Ow… that really hurts." Ranma muttered as he disentangled himself from various students and accidently dropped Ryoga's tattered red umbrella as he pulled himself free of the crowd . "I don't see what her problem was I just said for her to 'take it away', I don't want to eat any of that lunch. It looks poisonous."

That was when he found himself face-to-face with Ryoga. He couldn't help the sly grin that crept to his face, which meant that he would never be as conniving as Nabiki, but then again, he didn't really want to be, but if it meant he could afford to buy something other than Akane's home-made pig-slop for lunch he'd gladly blackmail the Hibiki boy. "Hey, Ryoga! Long time no… wait, I saw you last-night."

"Ranma Saotome! Prepare to die!" Ryoga yelled in ever increasing volumes as he dove past the other martial artist and came up with his tattered umbrella.. "Thanks to you I've been to El Paso and back!"

Ranma paused, allowing the umbrella thrust to come perilously close, "El… Paso?" As he finished he dodged, barely escaping a direct hit. Although the umbrella _did_ rip open a big hole in the chest of his shirt.

"Ryoga! This was my favorite shirt!" Ranma yelled as he charged, knocking the umbrella out of Ryoga's hand with a kick and retaliated with a vicious uppercut that sent Ryoga reeling back.

Hiroshi looked at the umbrella that landed in front of him, the way it landed made him think it was heavy but the way Ryoga had been swinging it made it look rather light, and Ranma had been playing with it most of the school-day. Curious as to it's true weight he bent down and picked it up, or rather tried to… it had to have been at least thirty pounds, maybe even fifty or sixty. "Wow, this is heavy." Hiroshi grunted to Daisuke.

"I knew you were out of shape Hiroshi, but not being able to pick up an umbrella is ridiculous!" Daisuke retorted with a snort as he bent over to pick the umbrella up. "You're right! It _is_ heavy… but I still stand bu my comment." Daisuke said as he hefted the umbrella with both hands up to his shoulder and fell over backwards.

Meanwhile, Ryoga was fending off Ranma's savage counterattack. The shirt thing had him really pissed for some reason. Ryoga decided to use it to his advantage and taunt him a bit. "It was only a _shirt_. Ranma, quit acting like a girl!"

"_Who_ are you calling a girl?!" Ranma yelled back as he released a good hit on Ryoga.

"You!" Ryoga responded deftly as he jumped up on top of a chain-link fence that surrounded the school's baseball field. Ryoga grunted to himself, he hadn't been deep in the forest after all, then began removing bandannas from his head.

'What's that jerk doing now?' Ranma asked himself as he broke into a dash towards where the other boy was precariously parched.

"Take this Ranma!" Ryoga yelled as he released a handful of bandannas, somehow he's managed to hone them to a razor edge and throw them like boomerangs.

Ranma had to alter his strategy from the 'head on' approach to more of a 'dodge-like-mad-so-as-to-not-be-skewered' approach.

"Ryoga!" Ranma yelled as he landed in a flip and kicked the fence Ryoga was balanced on and causing him to fall over on the other side.

By the time Ranma vaulted over the fence Ryoga was throwing bandannas as he leapt backwards, drawing Ranma out into the open area of the baseball field. 'Why's he bringing me out here?' Ranma wondered, feeling a slight bit of uneasiness, it almost felt as if he was being led somewhere. 'Whatever it is I can't just let him set the rules of the game.' Ranma thought as he dodged past Ryoga in a wide circular path. 'I've got to make him fight on my terms.'

"What are you doing Ranma? Are you afraid? Did you finally figure out that I'm too much for you to handle?" Ryoga asked, laughter and amusement edging his voice. "I'm going to take your happiness away from you!"

"What happiness!?" Ranma yelled back as he backpedaled out of the ballpark.

"No you don't Ranma!!" Ryoga roared as he leapt towards the other martial artist, "I won't let you get away again!"

- - - - - - - - - -

Akane felt bad, maybe she shouldn't have been so hard on Ranma. The food she offered him _did_ look horrible, and it smelt even worse, like a dead and rotting skunk stir-fried with stinkweed and lots of onions. And she did hit him with a dumbbell, the hexagon shaped one too. As akane mulled all this over she began to feel bad about what she'd done to Ranma, he hadn't deserved the half of it. She sighed, turned on her heel, and marched back to the crowd where Ranma had landed.

Now that she thought about it she could have hurt someone, punting Ranma into a crowd, why if his skull had hit anyone… Akane shuddered as she remembered a scene from an American Civil War movie where a soldier got his leg blown off with a cannonball.

Akane heard a "Gahh! Get off! Get off!" coming from near her feet where she'd paused for a moment.

Looking down she saw she was standing on Daisuke. He seemed to be struggling under her feet and under the umbrella that Ranma had been carrying around all morning. Akane jumped back, off of Daisuke, and then pulled the heavy umbrella off him.

"How did that Ryoga guy swing it around like it was nothing?" She heard Daisuke asking no-one in particular.

'Wait… if he swings this umbrella like it was nothing…' Akane thought, "Ranma!" she yelled as she sprinted off in the direction the pig-tailed martial artist had gone.

- - - - - - - - - -

"You won't run away from me again Ranma!" Ryoga yelled as he simultaneously leapt and punched at Ranma.

Ranma spun around, dodging the blow, but his counter came up empty when Ryoga blocked instead. Ranma then found his fist firmly wrapped with several of Ryoga's bandannas, tying their fists together.

"That'll stop you from running away from me!" Ryoga screamed as he wrapped another bandanna around their fists and tied it one-handed. Something struck him how it was similar to Indian wrestling.

"Now watch this!" Ryoga smirked as he pulled off his belt with his other hand and with a flick of his wrist it abruptly gained a rigid straightness. Ryoga chuckled as he said "You'll like what happens next."

"Ranma!!"

"What?!" Ranma turned as he heard Akane call his name… only to be whacked on the head with the flat part of Ryoga's belt. "Ow."

"Ranma, don't let him get near you! He's as strong as an ox!" Akane yelled back.

Whack! Ryoga hit Ranma with another flick of his wrist. Then turned his head and smiled as he yelled over his shoulder. "He's already found out! But thank you anyway!"

Ranma dodged Ryoga's next hit, twisting and turning to avoid being belted in the head yet again.

The way Ryoga was thrown momentarily off-balance when he did so gave Ranma an idea which he quickly put into motion. He pulled one way, then as Ryoga brought his belt down he pulled the other way, throwing a good kick to the wrist that held the belt.

Ryoga grunted as he saw himself lose his belt, things seemed to be going in slow motion now… Ranma was pulling himself between his legs and using their tied arms to his own advantage. This couldn't be happening. 'Not after what he did.' Ryoga shouted an incoherent bellow full of rage as he used his free arm to catapult himself, and Ranma, through the ballpark fence and into a tree that grew nearby.

Ranma was surprised that Ryoga had ben able to throw them both through the fence and into the tree. This surprise was, however, dampened by the extreme need for that one experiences after having the wind knocked out of them.

"Ranma!" Akane yelled in astonishment as she watched the other boy throw himself and Ranma into the tree. She had to do something before Ranma got himself hurt. "Ranma!" she yelled again, her hair flung out behind her as she started running forward… when she felt rather than heard something rush down just behind her. For some reason her head felt, _lighter_. 'How odd…' she thought before she raised her hand to the back of her head and encountered nothing, or rather the absence of hair.

"I'm going to kill them!" Akane growled, no longer thinking rationally. All she saw was the two fighters in red. _Everything_ was red now.

- - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, oblivious to the youngest Tendo sister, Ryoga and Ranma had both recovered their breath enough to resume their fighting. And continue they did, with a renewed zeal, Ranma trying to pull Ryoga off balance and attack, whilst Ryoga was busy countering Ranma's effort to pull him around and attacking when the opportunity presented it.

The fight seemed over when Ranma pulled in hard with his tied wrist as he punched as powerful a jab as he could into Ryoga's face. Ryoga, the yellow clad boy, staggered about with his eyes rolling as if fixed on a moving spot and almost collapsed, almost.

Ryoga instinctively countered as soon as he could do anything, he tried to fling the offending martial artist away, forgetting for the moment that they were still tied together with his own bandannas.

- - - - - - - - - -

Ranma was getting annoyed, 'It's all this stupid bandanna!' Ranma thought to himself. Sure, he'd used it to his advantage, but Ryoga was using it to his own advantage too. Ranma was getting tired of having to cramp his fighting style. So, while they were flying through the air, he flipped his feet up to Ryoga's body and pulled at the bandannas with all his might. There was a sound of joints being pulled out of place accompanied by the ripping of cloth.

"Yes, I'm free!" Ranma yelled triumphantly… just before he saw where he was going to land. The zoo, and not just any part of the zoo, one of the aquatic areas. Ranma sighed, nothing ever seemed to work out for him.

"Ranma! Just wait till I find you…" Ryoga yelled as he fell to the other end of the exhibit.

"I can't wait." Ranma said dryly as he impacted the icy cold water. Ranma, now female, emerged from the water a few minutes later as a shivering redheaded girl… 'Just _what_ animal is in here anyway?' Ranma thought, pulling herself onto the shore. Only to find herself looking into the eyes of a very angry flightless water foul.

"Waaark!" The penguin cried as it grabbed her by the pigtail and flung Ranma side-to-side pounding him into the ground multiple times.

"Penguins… Why'd it have to be penguins?" Ranma muttered, stumbling about from the sudden and intense beating he'd just received.

Ranma blinked a few times and shook his head to clear it. That penguin was wearing, 'No! It can't be…' Ranma thought as he looked at the penguin, which he now realized was wearing Ryoga's bandanna around its neck. Ranma was about to give chase when the offending bird dove into the water and disappeared.

"Ryoga…" Ranma trailed off, sure she'd been thinking of blackmailing the other

martial artist with his curse… "But penguins?" Ranma scratched his head bewildered for several moments.

"How'd they even get to China to drown?!" Ranma yelled to an audience consisting of the completely empty exhibit, a landscaping rock, and a dripping wet Ryoga Hibiki.

"Ranma! Is that you boy?!" Soun shouted towards the two martial artists. He had been very surprised by the sudden appearance of the two, falling out of the sky like that.

"What? Where?" Ryoga asked as he swung his head in every direction looking for the male version of Ranma. "Where is he?"

Ranma looked up towards the Tendo patriarch and squinted trying to make out who he was with. "Yeah, it's me Mr. Tendo." Ranma yelled back, before realizing her mistake and clasping a hand over her mouth.

"What?!" Ryoga exploded, "_You're_ Ranma?"

Ranma just looked sheepish and nodded, "I got cursed to turn into a girl… go ahead and laugh." Ranma looked down at her feet, twiddling with the ripped chest of her shirt, not even realizing how immodest it was.

"Laugh? Why would I laugh?" Ryoga asked in a bewildered tone. Not that he _wouldn't_ laugh at Ranma, just that he didn't understand what was going on, one minute they were fighting then Ranma was just talking. Something just didn't seem right about that.. Ryoga stood speechless for several moments. 'I've gotta something else… quick!'

"You call yourself _cursed_ with a cute body like _that_?" Ryoga said before he even thought about what he was saying. 'What? Wait, what did I just say?' Ryoga couldn't believe himself, 'Did I just call Ranma _cute_? That's... that's... _DISGUSTING_!'

Just then Akane came running up. She looked around and was about to vault over the wall and give Ranma a piece of her mind, a very physical piece, when a hand grabbed her shoulder ans kept her from moving.

What is it Akane?" Soun asked, sensing his daughter's disturbed emotional state, but not looking at her directly. He was still intently watching the female-Ranma and the other boy, he didn't really trust Ranma's denials earlier and it seemed almost like she _was_ flaunting her chest at the other boy. "What has you all worked up?"

"My… hair." Akane growled, resisting the urge to bite her father's hand after shaking it off.

"What happene–" Soun cut himself off as he looked at Akane for the first time. He stood there a second and then burst into tears, "This is so awful… who could have done such a thing? Who could have done this to my daughter? Giving her such a bad haircut… it's unforgivable!"

Akane growled again, her father _was_ right. It was time to punish them. With a wordless yell she leapt over the wall at Ranma screaming his name as she flew through the air.

Ranma, on the other hand wasn't about to just stand there and let Akane land a solid hit… but he wasn't going to run away from her either, so he simply sidestepped several paces. Just enough to stay out of her reach and aggravate her.

"This is for my hair!!" Akane screamed as she rushed towards the pigtailed martial artist.

Ryoga rushed forward and placed himself between the two. He wasn't really thinking about it, if he had been he wouldn't have done it, but his parents had brought _him_ up to be polite and protect womenfolk. "Wait! It's all my fault… it was my duel and my weapon that cut you, hit me instead."

"**_Fine!_**"Akane yelled as she punched him as hard as she could, complete with a running start and a good follow-through.

Ryoga went sailing into the landscaping rock in the middle of the exhibit. The rock shattered as he hit it with forces best left to small planets and other astral bodies.

- - - - - - - - - -

Several days later Ranma, Akane, and Nabiki were sitting in the livingroom watching tv, when Ranma abruptly jumped up and yelled "I remember!"

"What?" Nabiki asked dryly, though she really was interested. Ranma didn't care much about school, so that was out of the picture, and he didn't have much of a social life, so it wasn't that… what else was there?

"Why Ryoga and me were fighting!" Ranam said proudly, as if the feat of remembering why a particular person was trying to kill you was impressive. Then again, with Ranma's personality it may very well have been.

"Oh, why's that?" Ahkane asked, her curiosity piqued. She had been wondering that ever since Ryoga had attacked him in the middle of the schoolyard.

"It's the cheese war!" Ranma said, as if that explained everything.

"Cheese…" Nabiki started incredulously.

"War?" Akane finished the question.

"Sure." Ranma stated with a shrug.

"We got into this little argument at school…" Ranma began, "It was an all-boy's school and"

Ranma had to wait for the "What?", "Ranma, you went to an all boy's school?" and "Did you get hit on? I bet you got asked out a lot." reactions to die down before he could continue.

"Hey… I was always a boy back there!" Ranma sighed, "Anyway, one day I'm minding my own business, going to get some lunch, when… the lunch-lady announces that due to budget cutbacks to the education funding we wouldn't get any more cooked meals."

"Well, after the riot died down, the lunch-lady, Beatrice I think her name was, told us that we did have enough money to buy a half-pound of cheese for every student… but that there wasn't enough time to hand them out and that they'd just throw them out at us. "

"As it happened, Ryoga and I were always the last to get out of our permanent detention classroom and so we always arrived when the last block of cheese was being thrown out... and every time, as we raced for that cheesy lunch, we would be tied until I broke into the lead at the last moment and got the cheese."

Akane looked at Ranma disbelievingly, "I can't believe that you'd get into such a big fight over cheese!"

Nabiki nodded, "It's not like you couldn't have brought a lunch to school every once in a while… then he'd have gotten to eat sometime too."

"Well, I suppose…" Ranma admitted grudgingly. True he'd never thought of sharing or letting Ryoga get it, but this was 100 pure _cheese_ they were talking about here, not some vegetables or sandwiches.

"Seriously Ranma, you should apologize." Akane continued as she got up to leave. "I wonder where that poor boy is now…"

- - - - - - - - - -

"Where on earth am I now?!" Ryoga cried to the heavens, as he asked himself the same question.

* * *

Author's Notes: Here we are, chapter five's up! Yes, I did a search for 'hell city' on MSN and El Paso came up hit number five. Just remember "A greater hive of scum and villainy you will not find". 

The other day we were doing haiku in my imaginative writing class and I came up with several. However, I'll treat you to one in particular that was based on the current synopsis… maybe it'll replace it? What do you think?

To conquer the world  
Soun and Genma's great sacrifice  
exploding penguins.


	6. The Doctor!

Chapter six of Soun and Genma's… Operation Conquer the World!

* * *

Soun Tendo looked up at the ceiling of his room and sighed. He was having a bad day, no a bad week, why? His unstoppable penguin army was defeated by a mere hurricane yesterday… Soun sighed again, it was depressing. Looking out his bedroom window he saw that the sky was dark and cloudy, just the weather to suit his mood.

"Well, back to sleep." Soun muttered to himself as he rolled over and tried to go to sleep again… only to be startled by his dog, Storm, bursting into the room and showering Soun with sloppy doggie affection.

"No, Storm, bad dog!" Soun yelled, or tried to as Storm continued using his dreaded Anything Goes Super Sonic Dog-tongue attack.

- - - - - - - - - -

Kasumi looked up as her father descended the stairs and walked into the dining room with Storm happily nipping at his heels. It was good to see that her plan to cheer her father up enough to get out of bed had worked. Kasumi continued to watch her father as he walked past her out into the back porch and… suddenly rushed back in, slamming the backdoor behind him. Kasumi looked up at her father's face and was startled by the feral grin that he wore as he threw back his head and laughed somewhat maniacally.

Kasumi was spared anyone noticing the slight look of concern when Genma Saotome walked by Soun and said something in a low voice that caused Soun to explode, showering the room with blood and gore. Kasumi shook her head, clearing it of the daydream-like vision she'd just had. It really was like father to overreact and blow up like that.

"No, Genma! I will not allow you to use the family dog in one of your training schemes!" Soun shouted at Genma.

Genma put his hands up defensively and replied calmly, "But you just said that you hated 'that brain-dead flea-trap of a mangy animal', right?"

"Yes, Saotome, I did, but I was just a little upset at Storm for licking me like that." Soun explained, taking a deep, calming breath before continuing. "You know I trust you with my life, our plans, and even enough to join our schools together… but there are just some things that I can't allow, and messing with my dog is one of them."

"Fine Soun." Genma said, but there was a gleam in his eye that Soun didn't like. "I'll just have to think of something else."

- - - - - - - - - -

Ranma and Akane raced to school, well Ranma raced, trying to get there before the rain-clouds above decided to break and the torrents of cold water fell down upon the cursed martial artist. He shivered at the thought and ran faster.

School was very much uneventful, until Ranma caught Nabiki selling pictures of his girl-side to Kuno… somehow she even had ones with his fight with Ryoga after his shirt had been destroyed. Needless to say he wasn't happy about the middle Tendo's new method of attracting income, it made him feel dirty… but we're getting ahead of ourselves, here's how Ranma found out:

As Ranma rounded the corner of the school building, we saw Kuno shamelessly handing Nabiki several large bills as he asked her for all the information that she had on the wonderful, delightful, and enchanting Vibrant Pig-tailed Goddess. To which Nabiki pointed to Ranma and said: "All you want to know can be answered by Ranma."

Kuno, enraged by the mere name of 'Ranma', rushed over to the pig-tailed martial artist and screamed "Why? Why must fate torment me so?"

Ranma stared at him and blinked, then he shrugged, "I dunno, maybe it's fun to torment you…"

Kuno looked at him for a moment and then tilted his head in thought, mumbling "Yes, that _could_ be it… for who else but I, Tatewake Kuno, would Fate deign to take such an interest in?"

Ranma was speechless, he felt something that he'd rarely ever felt before. Something evil and alien, something that squirmed in his bowels: _empathy_. Shaking his head, Ranma tried to bonds the strange bonds before they could form. He had decided on an appropriate taunt to goad the other boy into a fight, but as he opened his mouth the kendoist smacked his palm and interrupted.

"That's right! What do you know about this girl?" Kuno pulled out the photos he'd just purchased and showed them to Ranma… unfortunately, the one that Ranma saw was the worst one, a picture from his fight with Ryoga.

"W-what are you doing with these?" Ranma yelled, his voice almost breaking into a squeal, then lowered two octaves as he growled "Just _what_ were you going to do with these?"

"Well, I was going to take them home and then lovingly place them into a photo-album, then place that book into my shrine, right under the poster I bought from Nabiki Tendo" Kuno began, then continued in a suddenly different, almost tv infomercial announcer-like voice, "Only $19.99 +tax, hurry now while supplies last!" before continuing in his normal voice,"And, alas, when the time of the sunset wouldst draw nigh, then I wouldst sit in betwixt the posters and meditate on the virtues of my two loves, Akane Tendo, and the Pig-tailed goddess!" Kuno exclaimed in a near-religious frenzy, then sighed, then drooled for a moment, and finally snapped out of it by yelling "WHY MUST I ASK ONE SUCH AS YOU, FOUL SAOTOME, OF MY PIGTAILED GODDESS?"

"Because," Ranma started explaining, continuing with all the care and civility he could muster, "You idiot! You saw me transform into her, and transform back! I _am_ her, she _is_ me! Body, soul, everything, it's all me… you deluded moron."

"Indeed foul one, I saw you trade places magically with that fair maiden…" Kuno nodded in understanding, "BUT I HAD NO IDEA THAT YOU WOULD BE SO EVIL AND CRUEL AS TO ENSLAVE HER… YOU… YOU… _BLACK HEARTED SORCERER_!"

By this time the shouting had attracted many spectators, and Nabiki was already organizing bets for the impending fight, and so it was no surprise when Ranma wound up and let Kuno have a nice right-hook to the face.

That's how the fight started, anyway. And most of it was rather boring, Kuno would strike and Ranma would block, or Ranma would strike and Kuno would block. Sure there were some dodges and flips, the double-twist, from-the-waist, back-flip totally caught Ranma off-guard though, and he barely managed to hold his footing…

in fact, he didn't really recover, as Ranma was watching Kuno he saw a photo flutter out of the Kendoist's uniform. Knowing that he had pictures on him, and that was why they were fighting, Ranma ignored it and focused his attention on Kuno, only to do a double take as he realized it was a picture of _Akane_.

Ranma quickly snatched the picture out of the air as he barely dodged the attack, "Hey, Kuno, doncha know that Akane'll kill you if she fin…"

CRACK - Ranma was interrupted by the kendoist bringing his bokken down hard squarely on the top of his head. Ranma winced in pain, and several students made the pun about a 'splitting headache', while Kuno stared at his bokken or rather what remained of it, as it had broken in half upon the contact with Ranma's exceptionally hard skull, then he burst into tears and ran home, crying about his prized, genuine "Super Samurai 2000" bokken.

"Ranma!" A female voice called out in a concerned tone, which resolved into Akane's voice as she ran over in, what most assumed to be concern for her fiancee, "Are you okay?"

She looked at Ranma and the bump forming on his head, it didn't _look_ too serious, but then it was a head injury, so she should probably drag him to the doctor's... then she saw, clutched in his hand, a picture of her, in nothing more than a bath towel… "Ranma!" she growled, realizing what must have happened, obviously Ranma was showing off the picture and Kuno was defending her honor, before turning on him and bending most of his joints, and one of his ribs, in directions they weren't meant to go.

Several students winced from the brutality, many more winced because it was determined that Akane had won the Ranma/Kuno fight and had lost all their bets… everyone except Daisuke, who walked happily up to Nabiki to collect the twenty dollar bet that, at ten-thousand-to-one odds, would pay for all of college.

"Always bet on the violent, tom-boy, penguin!" He said to Hiroshi as he passed, not even noticing how close he came to being ripped apart by a savage beast as Akane glared all the malice she could muster at the boy.

– – – – – – – – – –

Akane grumbled as she walked on to the doctor's office, dagging her lump of a fiancee behind her. True, it _had_ been her fault that Ranma was now little more than a moaning ball of human pain and agony, but the idiot had brought it on himself… hadn't he?

Akane shrugged, it didn't matter, she supposed. Then she looked up at the sign on the doctor's door and bellowed "Dr. Tofu! I have a patient for you!"

It was a few minutes before the door opened and a young man wearing glasses and in his mid-twenties opened the door and let her in. "Well, hello Akane! I didn't expect to see you for a while… did you sprain your ankle or something?"

"No…" Akane said, blushing at the doctor's interest in her, true that it was _professional_ interest, but the crush she had on the man thrived on any interest at all. She jerked her thumb over her shoulder to indicate Ranma, "It's this guy here."

Dr. Tofu looked at the tangle of human limbs in front of him and nodded, "You'd better bring it, um, _him_ inside."

After getting everything set up Dr. Tofu turned his attention to Ranma pulling her, pushing there, twisting that, and mumbling to himself the whole time. "This is awful, brutal… almost like some sort of violent monster got a hold of him…"

Akane reeled back as if the doctor had slapped her, tears welling up threatening to burst into a full-fledged cry… That was when Dr. Tofu looked back at her and her awful expression.

"Akane…" Tofu said, realizing that she was deeply hurt, "did you do this?"

Akane poked her two index fingers together embarrassedly, unable to look the doctor in the eye, "Well, Dr. Tofu, I…"

'Yeesh!' Ranma thought, mentally gagging, 'What's with this ridiculous "sweet, innocent girly" act she's putting up?'

Dr. Tofu laughed and slapped his knee, "Akane, you've got to loosen up and not take things so seriously!"

"Doctor Tofu?" Akane asked, wondering what this meant.

"Well, I thought the damage pattern looked familiar…" The doctor pointed at several places, "See that twist there, that one there, and the way his thumb is bent backward, and the way these two fingers are dislocated and tied together."

Akane nodded slowly, then it hit her, Dr. Tofu had been _teasing_ her! She blushed and giggled, remembering what people said, that if a boy teases it's because he's interested. She took that moment to daydream about herself and Dr. Tofu running down a beach. Laughing, giggling and _kissing_ madly. Until a storm-cloud that looked like her dad suddenly appeared and smote Dr. Tofu and scolded her for leaving her true destined love, Ranma. Then the Soun-vision suddenly laughed sheepishly. "Sorry, Pen-Pen, I thought you were Akane for a second."

Akane shuddered, whoever heard of a day-nightmare... daymare… whatever it was it sent shivers of rage down her spine. Her father wold pay! Oh, how he would pay… for an instant Akane thought of cursing him with Jusenkyo, but then realized that she had more of a chance cursing herself instead, and she really _did_ love her dad, really!

Snap! Crack! POP! Whack! Smack! The doctor had become a blur of movement and Ranma a screaming mass of strange, painful sounds that made Akane wince in empathy. The doctor chose this moment to strike up a conversation with Ranma.

"Hey, you're Ranma, aren't you?" The doctor said cheerfully an his patient gave a bloodcurdling, yet affirmative, wail of pain. "I hear you're Akane's fiancee, is that right?"

Dr. Tofu completely missed Akane suddenly blanch and nodded to Ranma's reply: "YeAAAAWWW!"

"I see, I see." The doctor nodded as he popped Ranma's shoulder back into place. "Well, you needen't rush into it, I mean you're still kids!"

"I'm not a kid!" Akane screeched, then calmed, a bit, "Besides, it's not our fault! Our parents decided for us!"

Dr. Tofu nodded, "I see. It makes sense, I mean look at the number of marriage that fail when the two 'lovebirds' choose, I mean, your parents couldn't pick anyone worse, right?" Dr. Tofu chuckled and smacked his knee as if it were an amusing anecdote.

– – – – – – – – – –

Kasumi Tendo scratched her head as she examined a book she'd just found in the back closet. For some reason it looked familiar, and then she remembered. A year ago she'd borrowed the book from doctor Tofu but… Nabiki had told her that she'd taken the book back to Dr. Tofu.

Kasumi scowled, a truly terrifying thing to behold from anyone living under the Tendo roof, Nabiki would get such a tongue-lashing when Kasumi returned home from delivering the book back to Dr. Tofu.

Kasumi's eyes brightened for a moment, she would like to make him a cheesecake as a way of apology, after all the man simply loved cheesecake.

– – – – – – – – – –

"Gyah!" Ranma shouted as soon as the barrage of joint-manipulation lessened, "That _hurts_, you know!"

"Does it?" Dr. Tofu asked, concern rippling over his face, "It shouldn't…"

Ranma's face brightened as he realized that it _didn't_ hurt. It didn't hurt! "Wow, I don't hurt anymore... that's amazing!"

That's when the phone rang and, since Dr. Tofu was far too polite to brush Ranma's thanks off to answer the telephone, Akane found herself answering it. She heard what the person on the other end said and her eyes went wide with horror, it was a disaster. _She_ was coming. The rival for Dr. Tofu's heart… almost anything else Akane could forgive, anything but that… Akane slammed the phone on the receiver, shattering it, and growled, that witch wold get what was coming to her, but not now, Akane had to plan against this one, she couldn't use only muscle.

"Come on, Ranma!" She grabbed Dr. Tofu's arm and broke for the exit.

"Akane?" The doctor asked, wondering what had gotten into the girl this time. "What's wrong."

"Oh! Dr. Tofu… N-n-nothing's wrong at all." Akane shook her head violently, trying to get the doctor to drop the line of questioning… "Where's Ranma?"

"I think he's still inside." Dr. Tofu said, more than a bit surprised t how quickly Akane had pulled him outside.

Akane didn't have time for this! She looked frantically around trying to decide the best way to grab Ranma and exit the doctor's office without encountering her most-hated rival.

"I said we have to go!" Akane yelled as she rushed back in and grabbed Ranma.

Ranma, for his part, was just finishing a good rousing blink as he wondered what happened to everyone. "Hey! Akane, what happened?"

"WE. HAVE. TO. GO!" Akane loudly enunciated to her reluctant fiancee.

"Why?" Ranma asked, totally oblivious of the growing frantic nature Akane was displaying, especially when Dr. Tofu walked past to take care of all the equipment he'd used on Ranma.

Akane stopped and looked at him, almost crying, "B-b-because there's someone Dr. Tofu likes… and she's coming here."

"What? Really?" Ranma asked, his interest piqued, despite his utter disdain for the normal school-gossip… he looked around to make sure nobody was listening and lowered his voice, "Who?"

Akane opened her mouth, about to speak, when she was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Oh no! That's her!"

"Really?" Ranma couldn't resist satisfying his curiosity and rushed over to open the door dragging Akane behind him. "Let's see who it is!"

Akane's expression was pure horror as the young martial-artist reached for the doorknob, and opened the door, revealing Kasumi.

"Kasumi?" Ranma asked… that was completely unexpected.

"Kasumi." Akane half spat out, as if it were a bad tasting word.

"Kasumi!" Dr. Tofu said as he entered the room to answer the knock.

"Hello Dr. Tofu." The eldest Tendo daughter smiled and held up a book, "I came to return this."

"Oh! So, _that's_ where it went." Dr. Tofu gratefully accepted the book with a warm smile, "Thank you."

"Oh! And doctor…" Kasumi held out another item, a container, "This is for you! I wanted to give it to you because I'm sorry that I kept your book such a long time."

Dr. Tofu and Kasumi were completely oblivious to the fiery electric-gaze of an "evil-eye" that Akane threw in Kasumi's direction. But Ranma was more than a little unnerved by it… you would be too if that same girl had just twisted you into a pretzel.

– – – – – – – – – –

Now an explosion wasn't all that uncommon in this particular section of the city… but the person involved _was_.

Genma left the smoking shed coughing, it really had been too bad, he'd almost gotten the Class II weaponry stabilized into the chassis. He sighed, or rather would have, if he hadn't been able to upgrade almost all the other systems on the robot. In fact Soun's auto-repair droids should be finished in a few hours, and then he could try again.

Genma shrugged and entered the house to visit the kitchen and make something to eat… for some reason he had a craving for a bacon-duck burger.

– – – – – – – – – –

"K-Ka-Kasumi!" Dr. Tofu's glasses steamed up as he looked at the contents of the container, he danced like there were ants in his pants, or like he'd stepped in cat-poo, only instead of being bad things he had a big, goofy grin plastered to his face.

Akane couldn't stand it any more… and if she blew up at Kasumi here than Dr. Tofu wouldn't like her anymore, she just knew it. So, grabbing Ranma she stormed out of the office.

After leaving, with every step she took, Akane seemed to loose some of her angry energy until she burst into tears. Crying that she could never, ever, never, not-in-a-million-years, ever, be with Dr. Tofu.

Ranma lifted an eyebrow. "Well... why not?"

"Didn't you see?" Akane asked, unable to decide wether to be surprised or angry at Ranma's ignorance. "It's obvious that Dr. Tofu loves my sister… and not me."

"Reeeally Akane?" Ranma asked, a twinkle in his eye warned her that he was up to something, but she either didn't notice it or didn't care.

"Yes, Ranma!" Akane retorted, then sadly added, "Dr. Tofu loves Kasumi."

"I'll say!" Ranma agreed with a sudden cheerfulness that made Akane want to rip out his teeth... slowly, especially when he started to laugh, "I'll say he loves her _cheesecake_!"

Akane stopped, dead in her tracks. _Cheesecake?_

– – – – – – – – – –

Soun left the house with Storm firmly on his leash as he exited the building to take Storm on his walk. Soun smiled as Storm did the things he'd always done on their walks, first he happily retrieved the paper for Soun, next peed on Mrs. Yamada cat, one of the nine-thousand the crazy cat-lady kept, then they crossed the street to taunt some of the neighbor's dogs, Sparky in particular today.

Had Soun understood dog-speak he would have been quite interested.

"Hi Sparky, what's up?" Barked Storm.

"Hey Storm! Not a lot on this side of the fence… say did you get those motivator units or that high-grade wiring?" Yipped Sparky.

"Nope… and I can't continue construction of it until I get those materiels." Storm whined in reply.

Sparky wagged his tail as he thought of a _great_ idea to cheer his friend Storm up. "I know what'll make you feel better!"

"What?" Storm tilted his head quizzically.

"Sniff my butt!" Sparky's cheerful and excited reply came.

"Um… no... I don't think that's a good idea." Storm protested and declined the offer.

"Oh, come on! You know you want to!" Sparky encouraged.

"Well…" Storm said indecisively, being swayed by his friend, Sparky could be persuasive in his own ways, "Okay… I suppose I could do it this once."

Well, in hindsight, maybe Soun wouldn't be interested in the dogs's conversation.

Storm stuck his nose through the fence after Sparky turned around and began to do what dogs do… only to be interrupted by Soun's face right there.

"Whatcha got here boy?" Soun gave a sidelong glance to Storm, "Why do dogs sniff each other's butts anyway?" Soun took a couple of sniffs… "That's foul, it's like Hormel chili topped with a month old dairy-shake that someone left on their computer and forgot about…"

Sparky turned around and excitedly yipped, "Wow! He's really good at this game! I just had that stuff!"

Storm tugged on his leash, trying to get Soun to come with him somewhere else. "Come along Soun! You're embarrassing me!" He muttered under his breath.

"Well, I hope that you get that thing built soon Storm!" Sparky yipped at his retreating friend and his human.

– – – – – – – – – –

Akane walked the rest of the way home in a sort of zombie-like state… could it _really_ be that Dr. Tofu was interested in the cheesecake and not Kasumi? Part of her wanted it to be so, that way she would be able to get Dr. Tofu herself, another part of her dreaded the revelation… it could mean that Dr. Tofu was interested in _older women_! That thought alone was almost worse than thinking that he was attracted to Kasumi rather than her… Akane sighed, could she really have been so blind? Was it really possible? Or was it Ranma teasing her?

Akane growled as she decided that it must be some trick that Ranma was playing on her and was about to jump on the unsuspecting bloke when she was interrupted by Dr. Tofu dancing with his model skeleton?

"What's going on?" Ranma asked in a whisper as he leaned over to Akane.

"That's Betty, Dr. Tofu's skeleton… and he always dances with her like that when he's deliriously happy."

"Oh..." Ranma lifted an eyebrow, "He's... something else."

Akane nodded sadly, "He sure is."

* * *

Author's Notes: Okay, here's a new chapter after such a long time! I bet you guys thought I'd dropped this story, right? No such luck... I just couldn't get to the Tofu scene. Also, now the mystery of why dogs smell each other's butts has been revealed and you know that it's a game where they try to guess what the other ate. 

As for Dr. Tofu, is he attracted to Kasumi… or does he just have an unhealthy obsession with cheesecake? Only time will tell.

Anyway, I recommend you read "Genma ga kutsushita guujin desu!" by Carrotglace at http://www.fanfiction.net/s/660958/1/, it's highly amusing and I think anyone that likes this crazy story will get a kick out of _that_ crazy story.

SleepingBear - I fixed the two capitalizations I missed. And yes, It _**is**_ shameful that I didn't notice them.

* * *


	7. The Gymnast!

Chapter seven of Soun and Genma's… Operation Conquer the World!

* * *

'Perhaps they'll kill each other!' Tatewaki Kuno thought to himself gleefully, it was indeed the most elegant of solutions to multiple of problems that plagued his life.

"But I digress, we are getting ahead of ourselves and you readers shouldn't be dropped in the middle of a story like this. 'Who am I?' you ask, the answer is both simple and complex… for you see… I am Mu Shu, a wandering Chinaman in search of fulfilling his one true dream. Though everyone here calls me Mousse… and since I am _not_ currently in China I will respect that name as long as my business requires me to stay here."

"Hey, Yuka… who is that? And why is he talking to himself in the middle of an empty lot?" Sayuri asked her friend indicating the long-haired boy wearing thick glasses.

Yuka on the other hand just shook her head and dismissed the whole thing. "It's nothing, and we'll be late for school, Sayuri."

"I thought you wanted to be a nurse…" Sayuri said with a questioning look, "It doesn't seem right for you to leave a mental patient out there like that."

Yika huffed, "And _how_ am I going to even get into med-school if I can't even get to our own 'normal' highschool on time?"

Sayuri just sighed and shook her head, sometimes Yuka was impossible to talk to, and this looked like one of those times.

Mousse ignored the girls. They were, insensitive as it seemed, irrelevant to his story or purposes and as such he gave them all the attention that they deserved, which was none at all. Clearing his throat he began agin.

"Let me start at the beginning, as far as concerns this latest incident…" Mousse said as he began to spin a tale to regale and entertain the readers, a tale of mystery, adventure, romance, and yes, even comedy.

– – – – – – – – – –

School passed both rapidly and uneventfully for Ranma Saotome that day and he was in the mood for a little snack before diner. In fact, he was unusually hungry, which is why he didn't even bother to change out of his cursed form after that little accident with the park sprinklers.

Upon requesting five buns from the local bakery she was surprised to receive a half-dozen. Sure she knew that the public schools in the area were a bit lacking, but even _that_ was stretching it.

"Hey, I said five… why'd you give me six?" She asked the paper-hatted vendor.

He got a friendly grin and a chuckle with the explanation that 'she was just so cute that he had to give her another bun'.

This was decidedly a good thing for Ranma in that it meant that he could use his cursed form to get more food. If he were Tatewaki he would have said 'Truly it must be that not even the gods could be so cruel and perverse as to cause such tribulation upon the entirety of my own mortal person.', while Ranma, being less poetic and dramatic, just thought 'I guess this curse isn't _all_ bad… I mean, I get _free_ food!'.

Walking towards the Tendo dojo at a brisk pace while eating the buns Ranma was not particularly paying attention. Not until a ribbon suddenly knocked one of the buns from his arm, and then Ranma was extremely disturbed, to attack him was one thing, fine… but to waste food, that was unforgivable!

Ranma launched into action and grabbed the ribbon locking eyes with the girl at the other end. "Oh, you'll pay for that free bun…"

"Huh? You caught my ribbon as if it were nothing!" the girl said, somewhat astonished, "You're no ordinary girl then."

"No, I'm not." Ranma agreed, but if _that_ little trick of catching her ribbon caught her off-guard then this girl was in for a _big_ surprise.

"Good…" the other girl said and made a swift movement to launch a club into the air and into her waiting hand. "Because I prefer…"

The other girl lunged into an attack which Ranma ducked under, and she finished her sentence. "Not to treat girls with ordinary courtesy!! Eh?"

That last part was from Ranma sweeping her feet from under her. A nice little move that the other girl never saw coming. It didn't stop her from turning it into a cartwheel and landing back on her feet. "You're quite good… Remember me, I am called the Black Rose of St. Bacchus's School for Girls. Kodachi, the black rose. Don't forget it."

With that somewhat strange monologue she, Kodachi, bounded off laughing maniacally. Maniacally enough to send shivers up and down Ranma's spine. It was a horrid thing that seemed to twist life into something dark and… _twisted_.

Ranma shrugged and continued walking home.

– – – – – – – – – –

_**Ka-Boom!**_ Acrid smoke rose from the crack in the door to the guestroom, both thick and black, as it rolled along the ceiling setting off the smoke alarms as it dissipated in its quest to find an exit.

Kasumi coughed as she waved her kitchen towel to clear away the smoke as she opened the guestroom door reveling a carbon coated Genma Saotome. "Oh my."

The two stood staring at each other for a moment before Genma broke the silence, or rather the ambient noise of the wailing fire-alarms. "Eh, heh-heh, don't worry about this Kasumi, I'll clean it up."

Kasumi nodded, "What happened Mr. Saotome?"

Genma shrugged and pointed to a strange machine in the middle of the floor, "It seems that my project here fried its wiring… which I don't understand, I used high-grade wire…" Genma trailed off as he inspected some wires that were sticking out of the device, half melted as they were he could still see that they weren't the high-grade wires that he'd put in there. "Now who could 'a…"

– – – – – – – – – –

"Yarp! Yarp!" Storm happily barked to himself as he finished attaching the high-grade wiring. It was finished, finally! All save for the motivator which was supposed to come in today, and that would be a five minute hook-up.

Storm hopped down off of the shoulder of the gargantuan robot he was on, soon it would be complete. Storm smiled a dog-smile and grabbed the tarp with his mouth and dragged it up the crouching form of the robot, placing it over the head and securing it in place despite the robot being much too large for the tarp to cover.

If he thought about it he would have considered it strange that his humans hadn't seemed to notice. But then again, he _had_ built it slowly and always covered it with a tarp, so maybe it was like a tree growing; nobody really noticed it until it was too big to pull.

So, finished with his work until that part finally came in, Storm trotted happily into the kitchen to beg Kasumi for some scraps, which from the smell might be beef teriyaki. Storm's doggie-smile grew bigger, if that was even possible.

"Oh my, Storm…" Kasumi looked at the dog who had tracked mud into her kitchen like the bad, bad dog he was. Only a bad dog would track mud into _Kasumi's_ kitchen. "Look what you did!"

Storm turned around and looked at the trail of muddy dirt and leaves. 'Damn,' Storm thought, 'There goes my teriyaki…'

– – – – – – – – – –

Genma left the guestroom, now clean save for the smell of fried electronics that would linger for a while. What _had_ happened to his wire? He'd gotten the high-grade wire to handle the power levels in his little project. One that, when finished, would certainly be a boon in their quest to conquer the world. Genma sighed, they'd been so close to conquering Cuba too. It would take a while before they could recover from _that_ setback, minor as it was.

Well, there was only one thing to do right now… and that was go and see if they had more of that high quality wiring in stock. Genma grumbled as he looked through his wallet and passed Akane's room where Akane and Ranma seemed to be talking to a group of bruised girls.

"Hey, Ranma, what's going on here?" Genma asked as he stuck his head through the door.

"Ah, hey pops," Ranma said, "These girls here want Akane to fight for em in a Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics match against St. Bacchus's that'll be held next week or something, I'm telling them that they shouldn't be asking a graceless, figure-less, uncute tomboy to do it for them though…"

"Ranma!" Akane yelled, indignant at the indigent description of her figure.

"So, are you suggesting that _you_ do it?" One of the girls asked.

"What? Me!? No way!" Ranma scoffed, of course he couldn't tell them that the girl they all saw right now was really a guy, so he made up a quick lie, "Um… I'm allergic to leotards."

– – – – – – – – – –

Ranma and Genma left the girls as quickly as they could, Ranma in his haste to leave behind any idea that he participate in the rhythmic gymnastics and Genma to find his high-quality wiring.

The two martial artists entered the store much like any normal person, that is, through the front door only to be met by the proprietor and guided to the proper section. "Now, Ranma my boy, I'll bet you'll be surprised with what I've done when you see it!"

"I'll bet I won't." Ranma replied sullenly, the only reason he'd come along was to get away from those rhythmic gymnastic girls from his school and their loony ideas about having _him_ in a leotard and prancing about like a girl in front of all his friends… all two of them: Hiroshi and Daisuke; how embarrassing would _that_ be?

"Say, do you have this in a larger gauge?" Genma asked, indicating a roll of thick copper wire.

The owner blinked at that, what would someone need with wires that were nearly as big around as a pencil? He couldn't imagine anything at the moment, well aside from some sort of heavy duty electromagnet like the one he'd built for science fair when he was in the third grade.

"Ah, no. We don't carry anything in stock like that, I'm sorry sir." The clerk said, still wondering what it was going to be used for; well, it couldn't hurt to ask… "Eh, well, what are planning on using it for?"

"A device of such horrendous nature that the mere sight of it would leave permanent mental scarring of a magnitude unlike any you have known in all of your existence." Genma said as he smiled.

"Uh, right…" The clerk was unsure if it was a joke, and the sudden laugh that the customer gave didn't make him feel any more confident.

"What was that all about pop?" Ranma asked, wondering if it was possible that his father had done the impossible and made him even more uncomfortable than he'd been with those girls from the rhythmic gymnastics team.

Genma just grinned and said, "You'll see, Ranma, you'll see…"

– – – – – – – – – –

"Gyah!" Ranma gasped in dismay pointing at the pile of stuff that his father wanted him to carry, all nicely piled into a large wooden crate. The contents looked heavy, metallic, and like they would cause anyone's chiropractor to smile with glee… which, for some reason, Dr. Tofu was doing at that moment, though he didn't know why.

"You want me to carry all that!?" Ranma yelled at his father.

"Ranma! I'm carrying things too, so quit your complaining." Genma retorted as he picked up a cardboard box full of stuff Ranma couldn't quite make out. "It's the fragile things."

"Right…" Ranma mumbled under his breath as he started to carry the crate back to the Tendo place. He was having some serious misgivings about wether it had been a good idea to accompany his father on this errand before he remembered the discussion that was leading to the result of him in a leotard, shuddered, and changed his mind. It was far, _far_ better to be carrying a ridiculously overweighted box for the half-mile or so.

– – – – – – – – – –

"Now, at about this time, Kodachi had heard that the remnants of the Furinkan had gone to beseech one of their school who was an exceptional fighter to embrace their cause and fight for their school's honor." Mousse said, pausing a moment to clean his glasses, "As she prepared she gave a strange look to the young and handsome man talking to himself in their livingroom, which was quite odd, but not quite as odd as her brother, she thought. 'Sasuke!' she yelled, 'Take this lowlife and dispose of him!'"

"Yes mistress!" Sasuke, the diminutive ninja servant of the Kuno household grabbed Tatewake Kuno from his meditation room and threw him out into the streets. Upon returning, however he found that Kodachi had already left on her errand… and master Kuno was quite put out for some reason.

Kodachi, however, was bounding across the rooftops of Nerima and laughing gleefully as she sped across town to deliver her good news. After all, it was always good news when Kodachi Kuno, the Black Rose, found that she was going to win yet another match… and good news made her want to laugh, so she did, unwittingly being the instigator of several police calls and more than a few scary-stories that big-brothers told their little sisters. Those same little sisters would spend years trying to forget the sound, but that is of no interest unless you're a therapist, and if that's the case we'll have to talk about a commission after the chapter.

Kodachi alighted to the sidewalk corner where she pulled a city map from her leotard, followed by a phonebook apparently she had to stop to look for the directions to get to her rival's abode.

"Just you wait Akane Tendo!" Kodachi sneered just before running into something had, like a brick wall.

Ryoga never noticed anything as he trampled Kodachi Kuno, staring intently at his map, before stopping for a moment, atop the gymnast of course. "Ranma Saotome! Just you wait!" He yelled to the sky. Tears streaming down his face in a manner that Soun would admire, before continuing, completely unaware of the trampled figure he left in his wake.

'Not bad,' Kodachi thought to herself as she pulled herself up and looked after the man who'd just trampled her so easily. 'Now _that's_ what a man's supposed to be like. Oh how I wish I could meet someone as manly as he is…' she thought to herself as she watched him depart.

Kodachi finally tore herself away from the sight of Ryoga's behind when he turned a corner and disappeared from her view. Only after that did she return to her map and phonebook, first looking up the address and then finding the address on the map… Kodachi smiled, Akane Tendo would never expect a house call.

– – – – – – – – – –

Inside the Tendo house everyone was gathering to eat another fine meal prepared by Kasumi. Chicken Teriyaki, Storm whimpered as he looked sadly at the plates of food only to receive a scowl from Kasumi.

"Storm! I already told you that you're not getting any." Kasumi said as she grabbed the dog's collar and forcibly pulled him away from the table. She pulled him out the back door and shut it before he could get back in. That was what happened to bad dogs that tracked mud in on her floor.

"Why did you put Storm out, Kasumi?" Soun asked, entering the room just in time to see her put Storm outside.

"Because he was being a bad dog today." Kasumi stated mater-of-factually.

"Oh?" Ranma asked, rudely breaking into the conversation as he sat down. "What'd the dog do?"

"Storm tracked mud into the kitchen." Kasumi explained, and while her voice seemed cheerful there was something underneath that gave him the distinct impression of Kasumi skinning the dog alive… of course she would cook the meat and use the skin in some sewing project; Kasumi would never kill something for _just_ the fun of it.

Ranma blinked. Kasumi would never do such a thing; it must have been a product of his literature class. Yeah, that had to be it, there was way too much killing in those stories: _Julius Caesar_, _Romeo & Juliette_, _The Life and Times of Jack The Ripper: An Immersive Psychological Study_.

"So, Kasumi…" Ranma laughed nervously as he saw Kasumi's gaze dart his way for a moment and then forced a smile as he said, "This looks great Kasumi. What is it? Chicken teriyaki?"

"Yes, it is." Kasumi said, positively beaming with pleasure at Ranma's comment.

Ranma sat in awkward silence as he watched everyone else start in on their meals. Everyone seemed a bit off to him for some reason that he couldn't quite put his finger on. His dad was still trying to swipe his food, Akane was acting huffy because her father had again confused her with PenPen, Kasumi was glaring at Storm as he whined outside, and Nabiki was busy making unhelpful comments regarding the relationship between Akane and her father. Yes, everything seemed normal… wait! Kasumi glaring?!

Ranma did a quick double-take and indeed, the eldest Tendo girl was staring daggers at the whimpering animal. Ranma looked down at his food and decided that he should never ever track mud into Kasumi's kitchen.

"Um… Ranma?" Akane asked, suddenly changing the topic… she swallowed hard, the bitter taste of her pride sticking in her throat; she had to ask Ranma to help her train for the Rhythmic Gymnastics match she had with Kodachi later… it was obvious that she needed a little help to get into the rhythm.

"Um… what?" Ranma replied in a mocking caricature of Akane, throwing in an exaggerated flip of the head that indicated emptyheadedness.

"Ranma! You jerk!" Akane threw her plate into Ranma's face and was about to pound him with a potted plant that was in the living-room when she caught Kasumi's eye and the unspoken threats about wasting food and getting dirt all over the floor.

"Um, heh, heh, whoo…" Ranma sighed in relief as Akane set the plant down and then sat down.

"Um, Ranma, I wanted to ask you to help me train for the upcoming Rhythmic Gymnastics match against Kodachi…"

Ranma nodded, "I understand."

"You do!?" Akane broke into a smile, "That's great!"

Yeah," Ranma nodded, "I understand that forcefully hitting people with a plate of food and then almost braining them with a potted plant is _obviously_ the best way to ask for someone's help."

"Ranma!" Soun broke in loudly but then continued in a whisper as he leaned over to Ranma, "Don't you get it, she is asking for your help, that means she sees you as obviously superior and wishes to emulate your skills!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Ranma muttered quizzically under his breath.

Genma leaned in and joined the whispering, "Obviously it's a ploy to get with you alone! You should take advantage of opportunities like these!"

"What the heck's gotten into you all of a sudden, old man!?" Ranma asked, edging away a bit.

"Indeed, it's obviously the opening of negotiations to a better working relationship." Nabiki leaned in and whispered.

Ranma shuddered and then looked over at Kasumi, "What did you put in this?"

"Nothing special… why?" Kasumi replied with a sweet smile.

- - - - - - - - - -

Ranma sat on the floor of the dojo as Akane began to warm up for her practice. It was kind of relaxing, he could just sit here and watch, pointing out flaws in form as his heart desired… and he had been asked to do it!

Soon, however, it became apparent to Ranma that Akane lacked the talent, and even natural grace to perform in any sort of gymnastics as well as the timing for anything rhythmic in nature… and Ranma had no problem letting her know it.

"Ranma! It's been thirty seconds and you're already telling me that I'm a hopeless failure!"

"Now that's not true… it's only been twenty seconds; and it's true, you've already broken your pins and ties yourself in a tangle to the hoop."

Akane growled, but she was unable to move because she had tied herself up pretty good. "When I get out of here I'll..."

"You'll what?" Ranma asked flipping over on his side so he could look her in the face, "You can't lay a finger on me, see?"

Ranma picked up a dowel and prodded her with it, it elicited a grunt and a mighty squirm from Akane, but the ribbon held fast. Ranma grinned and did it again several more times.

After a few minutes though, the novelty wore off and he did help her out of the tangled mess that she'd gotten herself into.

Akane glared at him for a moment before he stammered some sort of something; it may have been an apology.

- - - - - - - - - -

Tatewake Kuno took his seat in the St. Bacchus's School for Girls and scanned the room for his sister, Kodachi. One could never be careful enough when dealing with that strange, demented psychopath and her twisted sense of reality. Why, just the other day she'd almost poisoned their pet dog, Snuffles, because she thought he was an IRS agent… again.

It was probably that crazed view of reality that had given him this great opportunity, that is to see his sister and the horrible Ranma Saotome kill each other.

Kuno paused a moment, wondering what Ranma Saotome was doing fighting a Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics match with his sister in a girls-only highschool… Kuno shrugged, it was probably nothing.

"Hot dogs, get your hot dogs!" a girl called to him… it was someone from his school but he couldn't remember her name.

"I'll take three!" Kuno motioned to the girl. Hot dogs were great, not only were they tasty and nutritious, but unlike Kodachi's cooking they weren't usually poisoned. Yes, hot dogs… verily the world's most perfect food: for they didst contain all of God's good creatures.

The announcer said something drawing everyone else's attention to the ring as Kuno enumerated all of the virtues of hot dogs. It wasn't until he reached "they won't melt in your pocket" that he realized that the match was on!

Author's note:Well, it's been a while, but here's some more to the exploding-penguin saga of the Saotome and Tendo clans. I hope you all enjoyed it and that the story didn't ferment badly as it aged in my head.


End file.
